Planning Ahead

I was supposed to leave for Seattle on Friday May 28 but to my great surprise Amtrak sold out of sleeper cabins so the trip was pushed back a week. While briefly tempted to head up to Seattle and wing it on the way back down, I decided it would be better to create some sort of itinerary. Here it is:


June 3rd - Depart Emeryville for Seattle
June 4th - Arrive Seattle and hang there with my friends Mark and his wife Sunny who live there with their three daughters.
June 6th - Take the 12:35 ferry from Seattle to Bremerton and ride from there to Olympia - the state capital of Washington. 60 miles.
June 7th - Ride from Olympia to Longview. 77 miles
June 8th - Ride from Longview to Tualatin, OR where my friends from high school Lynn and Ralph live. 69 miles
June 9th - Hang out in Portland - once described as a place where young people go to retire.
June 10th - Ride from Tualatin to Corvallis; heart of the Willamette Valley and home of Oregon State University. 76 miles.
June 11th - Hang a right and ride to Florence on the coast. The town website says it's "...one of the best places to live in the United States." 83 mountainous miles.
June 12th - Continue down the coast to Port Orford; the oldest town on the Oregon coast and the most westerly in the lower 48 states! 104 miles
June 14th - Depart Port Orford and enter California, riding to Crescent City; a great spot to witness the Japanese tsunami, as long as you didn't have a boat in the harbor. 84 miles
June 15th - Continue to Eureka, seat of Humboldt county and home of California's oldest zoo. 87 miles
June 16th - Heading away from the coast inland, the next stop is Benbow. 71 miles
June 17th - Veer back toward the coast and ride to Mendocino; a former whaling and lumber center and a great place to spend a weekend.
June 18th - Another big day; 99 miles to Bodega Bay. Don't forget the helmet as "The Birds" was filmed here.
June 19th - Final leg back to San Francisco. 68 miles. 


Any number of occurrences could alter the schedule but it should be a decent approximation.


I may make one more post covering bike, equipment, etc. Otherwise please come back on June 4th for my review of Amtrak's Coast Starlight!