Ft. Steven's is historic for several reasons. First Lewis and Clark made nearby Ft. Clatsop there home during the winter of 1806. It is also the site of the only attack on American soil during World War I. A barge ran a ground here in 1910. The skeleton of which is still mired and rotting in the sand. The current park is the result of stabilizing a sandbar in the 1900's.

We woke up pretty late, as usual, and brought our bike out to the beach. I regret not taking a jar of sand or water and some shells with us. The Pacific was very active as usual, with big storm clouds just offshore to the south of us. After taking pictures we rolled up off the beach and headed out. Before leaving the park we made the mistake of buying coffee and filling our waterbottles with it. Our water tasted like coffee for weeks.

Minutes after leaving the park it started to rain. Very frustrating, it took us about 20 minutes to get waterproof. By then it stopped raining. We made the trip back to Astoria. This time the bridge was even worse, with more traffic and more wind. We got to the Bike shop much later than the 9 am we had hoped for, about 2pm. The mechanic there was awesome, doing a very thorough overhaul. We didn't have any bike problems for 1500 miles. We bought more equipment, lights and reflectors, a magnet for my cyclocomputer, a good Oregon cycling map, front racks and panniers for Patti.

I thought my bike was going to break with all the weight on it. We had been sorting and weeding out stuff ever since the bus. It was very evident we had way too much. Especially food, we had a twenty five pound sack of food. I thought it would be a good idea to let Patti carry some weight. She thought otherwise. We stopped at the post office and mailed the first of many boxes home. We of course bought postcards too. At the shop we met Mike, who offered to let us stay at his home. It was getting late and he hadn't had any victims lately, he joked. We agreed nervously.

We got out of Astoria for the second time at about six and headed to Mike and Lorna's. They were very friendly, they offered us dinner and beds inside. I refused both, although Patti and I really wanted to. I felt we needed more practice setting up all the new equipment and needed to get rid of some of our twenty five pounds of food. We camped that night in the rain, much to Patti's dismay.