We now have four days under our wheels and tomorrow is our rest day. Due to rain, we considered making today our rest day. But when the forecast predicted less than a half inch of rain today and more than an inch tomorrow, plus high winds, we reconsidered and remained on our schedule of ride four days and rest the fifth. I know that is not biblical, but we are not yet up to riding six days and resting on the seventh. Yesterday was an 80 mile day with 4200 feet of climbing, dry and windy. Today was 44 miles with less than 1000 feet of climbing, very wet and less wind. About half way into the ride we decided to stop for coffee and something to eat in Oakville, WA. There was only one diner in the little town and I was a bit concerned because there were only three cars in the parking lot and I think two of them belonged to employees. So I was violating one of my general rules when traveling. I believe that the quality of the culinary experience is going to be directly proportional to the number of cars in the parking lot. However, like I said, it was the only diner in the town of Oakville. At this time I can add the name of this diner was Jag’s, for your future reference. We dismounted, pulled off our rain gear, leaned our bikes up against the front of the diner and went inside. Two of the tables actually had customers, a family with a baby and a group of three … all waiting for their food. We were able to find a place to sit, making our choice from ten empty tables. The waitress came over and figured out we actually were going to make a food order, and thought to bring us menu’s when we started ordering from the menu items that were written on the walls, that she let us know they were no longer current or available. At twelve, as in high noon, we made our order. It was not a complex order: ham and eggs; two pancakes; and biscuits and gravy. Jim, Bill and I started talking about the ride, talking about the weather and the rain. We talked about what city would be coming up next and how far way was it. We wondered where Dennie and her mom might be and what they were doing while we were riding. We talked a while and then wondered where our food might be, because it had been a while. We looked at the other tables and they did not have food at their tables either, very odd. At 12:20, one of the other tables was served. To make what is becoming a long story short, at 12:35 the second table was served and at 12:45, we were finally served, 45 minutes after a very simple, not complex, order was made. After a very, very long meal break, we got back on the road and headed to Chehalis. As we were leaving Bill leaned over and said, "Did you see that baby at that other table? When they came in, it was a newborn. I know it had it's first tooth when they paid their bill."
So after 4 days of riding, we have ridden 242 miles and we have climbed just over 10,000 feet. Weather has been a combination of sun, wind, and rain. The countryside and scenery have been awesome. The first couple of days were rainforests, mountains meeting the sea, off shore islands, harbors and smells of the ocean. The past couple of days have been forests, lakes and rivers. Needless to say, it is very, very green. With the rain and all, we find it amusing that when we pass forest service stations, the fire danger is always posted as moderate. We are not sure how to get a moderate fire started, everything looks so wet. 
About all of the cars that pass us have been very, very courteous. They often hang back and when they pass, they usually cross over the center stripe to give us plenty of room. Only twice, that I remember, has a car come unnecessarily close and once a high school kid in the passenger seat leaned out and yelled at us. I guess high school behavior is universal and not regional. In prior blogs I mentioned that Jim is using the maps from Adventure Cycling and I have GPX files from Adventure Cycling (the GPX files are free downloads) on my Garmin Edge 705. Also, in our SAG vehicle, Dennie has a set of the maps from Adventure Cycling so she knows where we are. Now that we have been on the bikes for four days, we are not sure how someone could do this ride without a GPS with map features, especially in the cities. The Adventure Cycling routes are excellent at providing routes with low traffic or wide shoulders but sometimes this means you could easily miss an obscure turn and ride right by your intended route. We have done that a few times and I will glance down and say, “Jim, check the map. We are off GPS.” The nice thing about a GPS is you can see where you are in a city or where the route is indicated and how far away we are from it. If we did not have a GPS with map features, there would be a number times when we would either be miles off course or lost in the city or find ourselves on a busy boulevard without a bike lane. 
We have seen a number of other riders with panniers and we suspect they are possibly heading to Mexico also. When we pulled into our Microtel last night, I saw a young couple with panniers looking longingly at the hotel from the driveway, so I went out and chatted with them. They were from Los Angeles and he had accrued six weeks of vacation and they were going to go as far south as they could from the Canadian border also heading towards Mexico. They had been riding for six days and had gone about 200 miles (we had been on the bikes for 3 days and covered the same 200 miles). They also told us about an older, retired Korean couple that they met in Bremerton that did not speak much English. They had flown over from Korea, bought bikes in Seattle and planned to ride to Mexico. They completed 12 miles their first day. I am going to wake up in the middle of the nights wondering how far they get. What an incredible sense of adventure … or is ignorance bliss? Oh, the young couple with panniers decided Microtel was above their budget and they rolled away looking for an RV campground.
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