Before leaving Centralia this morning, we cycled into town to see the historic section. Beautiful murals adorned the walls of the buildings and the main street was filled with antique shops, bars, pubs, restaurants, and more antique shops.

It was a good three mile warm-up before we started up the hills for the day. Our map indicated we were to ride on Salzer Valley Road and I thought we would have a flat ride like yesterday. No way…our first “hill” was 1.3 miles and a very gradual climb, then a beautiful long ride on the ridge overlooking the valley we had just left.

The descent was a 16% grade and took a very short time to get to the bottom.

A few more miles and then we started another climb, a long gradual cycle with another quick descent. For 44 miles today we followed this same pattern. Who said going south on the Pacific Coast Cycle route was all downhill?
Every now and then I would look behind me and there would be no Bill. He was capturing photographs of those beautiful old vehicles.

He is just enamored with the old cars and trucks.

Thank goodness, I have the map to follow. We comment each day that “everything is beautiful, in its own way…” whether it’s a wild iris, a restored custom Chevy hotrod truck, or a calf stopped to check out the crazy bicycle riders.

We have stopped for the day in Castle Rock, Washington – 35 miles from Mt. St. Helens (not visible right now due to cloud cover). Rain predicted tomorrow may slow us down, but we still hope to be in Astoria, Oregon by the weekend.