Shelton to Westport (Garmin File)
The day started with a room breakfast at the Super 8, a slightly below average 2 star hotel. At hotels, like this one, where breakfasts were nonexistent or uneatable we opened up a mobile kitchen, consisting of high quality cereals, breads, fruit and toppings. My favorite evolved to be Kashi cereal and toasted raisin bread with cream cheese. After rolling out more or less together the faster groups started looking for the first coffee stop. The rest of us started looking for bicycles at coffee stops. After coffee the fastest riders started looking for our second breakfast stop, which usually consisted of a gas station. Steve Wesson usually located a good town to stop for lunch. Most often after lunch we were spread apart so far we gave up looking for other riders and were on our own until we reached the hotel. Rune Bjerke created the concept of these rides but on a day-to-day basis Steve ran the show and we were better off for it. He used to own a bike tour company and has ridden this exact trip a couple of times and led it a couple times more. He can come off as a bit of an ass sometimes, but people say that about me too, so who am I to judge. I left the trip with fond memories of Steve.
As I recall the roads were rural and had low traffic and we had sunny weather. At 51 miles we crossed our first named bridge, the Chehalis River Riverside Bridge (url). Built in 1939, it spans 240 and has no shoulder.
