Written by Dave

Day 2–Sept 26 – 60 Miles, 2,245 feet climbing

We woke to surprising fresh feeling legs this morning. Both of us thought yesterday’s super steep Green Mountain Road would have been lingering. We are definitely under-trained for this ride. Maybe the reviving Hammerhead IPA we had yesterday did some good. Further research is taking place now at our destination – The McMenamins Olympic Club in Centralia.

Nancy reported that at least one big ship floated past our room last night. I heard and saw nothing. This morning there was a sternwheeler from American Cruise Lines parked out on the river. We have no idea what time it came in, or if folks were riding it. It may be that a cruise started or finished last night. We heard nothing of last night it as well – so there was some good coming from being exhausted from Green Mountain Road after all.

Over brekkie, we mucked around with the first few miles of our ride today so that we could ride over the nearby train and Interstate 5. Komoot suggested that we take some stairs. While our bikes are super light compared to normal, they are not really stair light. The ride out past the port gave us some river views, a lumber mill and an “only in Puritan America” coffee drive through. Photo below.

There were no massive climbs today, which was a relief. I mucked up my bike computer in the morning so I had to rely on Nancy all day for navigational guidance. Neither of us enjoy that as much as I’m constantly asking “where now?” at every junction. There were thankfully not too many turns. The roads were mostly quiet as well. Most of the cars seemed to be on the adjacent I5. We had a bit of traffic noise at times but it was mostly peaceful all day. At one point we were riding between I5 and the main north/south train lines. We could hear the highway until a train came and drown out everything.

We rode through mostly non-descript highway towns of Kelso, Castle Rock, Vader, Winlock and Napavine. We’ve been through many of these towns back in the 1990s when we rode one day STP (Seattle to Portland) events. Oh to dream of being young again – 200 miles in one day, even with prevailing tailwinds seems like a lot to ask of our aging bodies. Not being on a strict schedule gave a chance to look around also – I’m not sure if it made much difference as with our chosen route, we didn’t even find a nice place for a morning coffee.

After almost 5 hours we finally took a break in the bustling downtown of Chehalis. We found the Market Street Bakery just as we were starting to run out of gas. I’m not sure that we would have made it that far if not for the massive brekkie we had back at the Kalama Lodge this morning. We only had to ride 5 miles after lunch to reach the historic Olympic Club.

We had worried last night that the menu at every McMenamins would be the same. We needed not worry as the Olympic Club has some tasty sounding additions. And about the Olympic Club – yes, it is a proper old building repurposed by the McMenamins family. That means shared bathrooms, some train noise and movie theater that goes until 9:50. But it also means lots of character.

The Olympic Club is billed as a living artefact of the old west. It’s a former bawdy house (I had to look that one up) where more than a few bank robbers, gamblers, bootleggers and a few “bunko” men hung their hats while mixing with more respectable loggers, miners and railroaders. They have one large room that’s an old theatre where they show current titles. A new Leo Decaprio title is on tonight but it’s apparently almost 2 ½ hours long so we’ll probably give it a miss so that we can concentrate on refuelling on Hammerheads. While the food menu has some variety, the libations menu is about the same. Lucky us, we’ve taken that shining to the medicinal qualities of Hammerhead.

Tomorrow we’re off to Tacoma and The Elks McMenamins. They reportedly have an Oktoberfest party so our Hammerhead prepping tonight should come in handy.