Adventures By Guy

I am so glad I paid the money for a good sleeping pad. Slept great on that gravel RV space! Slept my usual 6 hrs and as I didn’t have my rain cover on the tent I lay there watching the birds flit above me in the trees as the light was getting brighter. First time I camped this trip. I stayed in my bag on my pad and started packing things up. Finally got about everything I could pack inside so I got up. It’s getting hard to get out of a tent gracefully now that I’m 59! Packed everything up and then fired up the bike and found the showers. Came back and that’s when “The Ranger” stopped by. He also informed me of showers within 75 yds behind some trees too. Oh, thanks… no big deal firing up the bike. It might have gotten Scott out of his tent. I heard his alarm going off every 10 or 15 minutes for I think an hr. You’re on vacation just turn it off! I got back and he was up and starting to pack while I sat and typed out yesterday’s post while I listened to the surf and began seeing the line between the ocean and sky become clearer.
We hopped on the bikes and headed south. So many seaside towns and lots of traffic. Lights and 25 miles per hour or an RV in front of you. They go fast down the straight sections then sloooow in the curves where you catch them… so I decided to change the game up a bit. I put the cruise on 50 and I became the slow one on the straight sections and then had a clear shot at the curves and left them behind. Then they would slowly catch up. So 154 miles today at 25 to 50. Took us a while. We started stopping at some of the turn outs. The coast is beautiful and they say from Florence on south it gets much better.
We stopped at Florence for a late lunch. I looked up award winning chowder. Big news article on Novelli’s reclaiming the title! So we searched out Novelli’s and found it floating next to a pier. Just a small shack on floats. We walk in and I told them I’d like some of their award winning chowder. We sold out of it 90 minutes ago. What? Well, what else do you have? We have live crabs or cooked cold crabs and we are almost out of those. We are closed Tuesday and Wednesday so people stock up on Mondays. Oh, well give me a cold crab. For $3 more you get butter, lemon, and cocktail sauce. Ok, give me the butter and lemon. You want us to clean that for you? Yes, because I am from Illinois and I don’t have a clue on how to clean a crab and eat it. They laughed and the guy takes a crab and in about a minute turns around and hands me the plate. No mess and very clean. I think it was my best decision of the day! I go find Scott outside in a place they have set up for eating. It’s floating alongside the pier too. An old German couple who have traveled up this coast many a time was talking to Scott. They were telling him about the story of Novelli’s as they had been here for years and had an excellent reputation but then closed for a while. It turns out the owners died and their son decided to open it back up again. He told us some bits and pieces of the story. Kye, who served me… I asked if he was the owner. No, I only work here. Owners inside. There were only 2 guys and they both look under 30. But Kye told me the story.
DJ’s parents ran Novelli’s for years and years. Dad caught the crabs and Mom cooked them and made chowder. They went out and set out their crab pots and were coming in. Up north the tides run harder and going over the “Bar” (Sand Bar = shallow) at the entrance to the bay where the waves will break when the tide is running can be very dangerous. You can find all kinds of YouTube videos of pleasure power boats screwing up. Well, Mom and Dad waited three hours until the coast guard said they could go in. While they were crossing the bar a freak wave came in and crashed down on their boat. I asked if they rolled it. Kyle said no, that wave just hit it and exploded the boat. It was a wooden boat. He pointed to one like their boat and it wasn’t a small boat by any means.
Both parents were drown. Only some boots, a 3’ section of bow washed ashore and some other small things. This was in 2020. DJ decided to reopen the place and just this year a crab man called them from 30 miles down the coast. Hey, we found some of your parents crab pots, around 115 or so. They didn’t know where his parents had placed their pots and they set 300 of them. These that were found had been in the water for 3 years. I talked to DJ a bit before we left. He seems like a good young man who is trying to make a go of the family business. They have reclaimed the best chowder title now too. So if in Florence stop by and get some chowder… but if on a Monday you better get there before 1 pm. When Kye came around I asked him how was the best way to go about eating the crab. He gave me some helpful pointers. I told him… If you’re ever in Illinois I can show you how to husk some corn quick… but crabs… NOT!
So I asked them if they were the number one chowder who took second? The Firehouse. I had Scott wanting some chowder so he didn’t get crab. He eventually wandered off about 10 minute before I was done. I went looking for him and didn’t find him. I’m staying by the bikes. All sorts of people walking by and commenting on the bikes. Then my phone chimes. Hey, I found the Firehouse. Down the street on the right. I wander down and see Scott finishing up a cup of chowder as an appetizer. I go in and order a bowl of chowder. Their bowl was quite big compared to their cup. Theirs was a seafood chowder with assorted things in it. It was good and for the size, quality and location quite reasonably priced at $14. Scotts meal came and it looked scrumptious too. It was nice to sit on the sidewalk and eat under the awning. I told Scott that I don’t usually do this and it was nice. He started laughing and said… you’re still getting broken in to this retirement stuff, it will get easier. We finished and I mentioned there was a hard ice cream place down the street… so we headed that way. You have to realize we didn’t have much of a breakfast (pistachios for me) and it was 3 pm and we hadn’t had lunch yet. We ate well and then rode 60 miles to Eugene, Oregon and we had no desire for dinner.
Most of the day along the coast Temps were 65F to 71F as soon as we started heading inland the temp started rising. By the time we got to Eugene it was 89. Just a little warning of what’s to come for us as we head east. Scott’s going to cross southern Nevada or California/Arizona. Real heat. But we will deal with it because that’s what you do when you ride across the country. You experience it… you don’t pass through in a steel and glass climate controlled bubble.