September 26th
We stayed at Honeyman State park next to the dunes and woke up in our forest gloom. The trees keep out the sun, and so, even though it was clear, the dew and condensation from breathing thru the night really builds up on the tent. We noticed black spots on the body and fly of the tent from all of the wet we've been thru. The instructions on the tent say to set up within 8 hours if the tent is packed wet and the temperature is over 80 (or something like that - warm) and within 24 hours if below that. Though we've set up in a 6-10 hour timeline daily, there's little chance for the tent to actually dry as we're rarely in direct sunlight for long.
A typical riding day, given the time of year now, goes something like:
6:30, dawn twilight. Awaken.
7am, clothes changed and sleeping bags packed
7:30 am, taking down tent and folding tarps
8am, loading bikes and eating
8:30 - 9am. on the road.
11am, first snack
12:30, lunch
3, more snacks
4pm, arrive at a campground, meet bryan and maggie if we're travelling with them, begin to set up, and start dinner. Typically I will make dinner while erin puts the tent back up.
6pm, Have dinner during twilight or around sunset, and usually feel extremely exhausted as soon as the day's light is gone (biology! ) and then go to sleep shortly after.
Anyhow, we were supposed to ride to the coast west of coos bay (Sunset bay state park) but the day was getting late (4pm) and Erin was feeling particularly run down and so we started scouting around the area for a campground. We didn't find one in the coos bay area despite going to the tourism info centre and asking and calling all the local rv parks so we cycled south of town and asked someone with roadside property to use their extraneous lawn for tenting which they graciously permitted. Our first wild camp! Sort of. Given we had consent, definitely not a stealth camp (set up after dusk, leave before dawn). Also, given the grass was mowed, hardly a wild camp. Nevertheless, a triumph because we were in bed shortly after sun set, safe, and fed.
