It was bitter-sweet finishing the TransAm which we did in Astoria on 17 August. The TransAm tradition is to put dip your rear wheel in the ocean you start and the front wheel in the ocean you finish.
Astoria, on the Northwest coast of Oregon, is a beautiful place and it would have been great to keep riding down the coast or explore the area more, instead of having to keep moving to get to the Solar Eclipse. Astoria is a fitting place to start or finish the TransAm route as, like Yorktown at the other end, it has a commemorative column (this one to explorers Lewis and Clark) overlooking the water. We rode up a pretty hard hill to watch the sunset to be rewarded with some great views.
Astoria, on the Northwest coast of Oregon, is a beautiful place and it would have been great to keep riding down the coast or explore the area more, instead of having to keep moving to get to the Solar Eclipse. Astoria is a fitting place to start or finish the TransAm route as, like Yorktown at the other end, it has a commemorative column (this one to explorers Lewis and Clark) overlooking the water. We rode up a pretty hard hill to watch the sunset to be rewarded with some great views.
We had joined the Lewis and Clark bicycle route from Missoula which led us down the enormous Columbia River which borders Washington and Oregon. The Columbia starts in remote desert country, moving through fertile wheat belts eventually becoming the west coast rainforest. It was 38 degrees C each day (which seemed bizarre for Washington) with renowned headwinds holding us back on some days to stopping and setting up camp at lunchtime for the day. Trees and rainforest start to appear from Hood River, about a day out of Portland. Hood River was a wonderful place for a rest day with cafes and breweries overlooking the River. While the Columbia winds are the enemy of the westward bound cyclists, it is the capital of windsurfing and kitesurfing. We spent a long time just gazing out over what seemed like hundreds of kitesurfers. We skirted around Portland to continue along the waterfront until meeting the Pacific at Astoria.
For the eclipse we travelled to the town of Independence by bus, train and bike. Our Warm Showers host lived at an air park where everyone has a hangar in the back yard, connected by a road for their planes, to the runway. Many arrived in private planes to stay with the locals, including our hosts, to watch the eclipse together. For viewing the eclipse, we rode a bit south out of town to a bridge with a nice high view.
Eclipses are surprisingly beautiful. I don’t have any photos of the eclipse as I don’t have that type of camera equipment. A young photographer friend Thornton Drury who was for a time riding the TransAm along side us, took this image which captures some of the luminescence of the eclipse. There are also some new infra-red images from NASA.
I did remember some things from previous eclipses and learn some new things. It gets cold as the eclipse approaches. The shadows become extra sharp and there is a wonderful eerie feeling as the light gets low. I was hoping for complete darkness but as with previous eclipses there was peripheral light from the edge of the eclipse. Planes and jets were flying around everywhere. There was a hot air balloon suspended high in the eclipse path - a thought as to how I might enjoy to view a total eclipse in the future. A couple of jets were flying along the eclipse path presumably in order to increase time under the shadow of the eclipse as it rapidly moved across the country.
Watching the eclipse was a fitting end to a wonderful trip. Once it was over we had our last day of riding back to Portland where we packed up the bikes for our exit from the country via New York.