Biking to the Ocean

Astoria, Oregon – August 19, 2025

We wake up to an amazing sunrise on the Columbia River and enjoy the peacefulness of the morning.  No cars, no alarms, just the sound of the river and nature all around.  Well, there was the 2 am wake up call when the engines came to life to help unstick us from the low tide.

It feels that we have gone back in time, as our boat is not docked at a marina but actually beaches on a sandy shoreline.  Check out the photos.  We are told that this is how these paddle wheelers (which have a shallow draft) worked on the Mississippi and Columbia.  One didn’t have to have a dock to get boat service – just a nice sandy beach.

We hop off with our gear for the day, or more like waddle off as one does with bike shorts, brightly colored spandex, and bike shoes that aren’t meant for walking.  We head to our busses (motor coaches) which take us to the start of our ride.

Today’s theme is Ocean.  We are biking through the estuaries and mud flats where the ocean meets the land.  We ride through coastal forests, wetlands, and then onto highway 101 which is the only way into Long Beach – known as the world’s longest (?) beach. 

We stop at the iconic Marsha’s free museum which has curiosities, T-shirts, souvenirs, and salt water taffy.  We choose flavors from licorice to blue raspberry, put them in our bags and off we go to the beach.

We can see the multitude of multicolored kites on the horizon first and realize we have happened onto the international kite festival (!).  We are bummed we can’t stay longer and take in the synchronized kite competitions.  We do enjoy the animal kites – dolphins and even a jelly fish.

We join the Discovery trail which is an 8+ mile paved trail through the sand dunes and then the coastal forest.  It is one of the highlights of the ride.  We have it mostly to ourselves and we get peek-a-boo views of the crashing waves while we ride.  We head through some small fishing villages and enjoy our slow paced ride.

We then make it back onto highway 101 and to the ominous Astoria bridge.

This is a 4.2 mile ride on an older bridge that was not built with bicycles in mind.   We have about 24 inches between the cars and the cement pillar.  I stay focused, we don’t talk much, and my hands are numb from holding the handlebars so tight the whole way.  Then we get a surprise – dead birds.  There are over 30 unfortunate birds that either hit the bridge or the cars, and are now in our tiny bike lane.  I have to decide either to miss them and risk hitting the passing the logging trucks or go straight over the flattened fowl.  Not a pleasant choice.  The final part is the steep rise over the bridge passage – we are over 300 feet up at the top.  Not much time to really enjoy the scenery.

We make it up and over and down into the cute coastal town of Astoria, famous for the movie – The Goonies. It is also the oldest US settlement west of the Rockies, settled in 1811. 

We get to the boat and have enough time for a quick lunch and then off to the next adventure – Fort Clatsop – Lewis and Clark’s winter home for 110 days and it rained all but 12 of them.  We see the replica log cabins in a small square ‘fort.’ I can’t imagine hanging out for 4 months with 30 of my friends in this small, dark, wet and cold place.  It would make me want to get back across the country as soon as possible.

We finish up the evening with another spectacular sunset, looking back over that nerve racking bridge we passed over.  We enjoy the view from our nice paddle wheeler and head into the evening show.  Tonight is rag time.  A good full first day on our bikes and then back onto the river.