Day 11! Begin Phase 3

This morning we woke up with a plan for finding out if that road was paved. We decided that at breakfast, which would be at a rest stop/beach access in the small town of Ophir, we'd try to call my mom to get her to look up an Agness phone number for us. Anyone in the town would know if the road were paved.

We road 10 very hilly miles through a chilly, windy and foggy morning to Ophir for breakfast, by which time I was both very hungry and suffering from a very, very full bladder. I also made up a song, which I'll be kind enough to share with you 'cause I know you're curious:

Hills in the morning,
Hills in the morning,
When I'm half asleep,
Climbing the hills,
Earning my breakfast,
I'm anxious to partake.

Flash of the ocean,
Flash of blue sky,
Oh, that's such a treat.
Look, there's a downhill,
Making the miles go,
Now it's just repeat.

While Anthony cooked the oatmeal, I was on the phone with my mom. She found a phone number, after much looking. Agness is a very small town. She also spent a lot of time looking around the internet and with my step dad looking at maps, trying to answer the question of if they road were paved. They felt it was from what they were able to find.

I still called the RV and Lodge Resort in Agness and the woman who answered the phone there told me it was, indeed, paved, except for a few sections where they'd repaired the road and made it gravel. We decided we'd go for it.

Shortly after breakfast, we reached Gold Beach, stopped for bathroom needs and said goodbye to the coast. It would have been harder to leave the coast if it weren't cold and foggy there. We'd gone less than a mile up the Rouge River when we were too hot and had to take off some layers. It continued to be windy throughout the day, but the temperatures were much better - hot, even - off the coast.

We enjoyed a scenic ride up the road paralleling the Rouge. I felt a little drained, though, that day and like I had a bit of a head cold. Davan had felt like she'd had a cold the day or two before, so it's possible I actually did. Davan seemed to be feeling fine this day, though.

We felt like leaving the coast marked the start of phase 3 of the trip. Phase 1 had been getting to the coast. Phase 2 had been the ride down the coast. Now phase 3, returning home. We were to revise the phases later...

We reached Agness in the afternoon. Or, rather, we reached the RV and Lodge Resort - a smallish RV campground with a few cabins for rent. They had a little restaurant and a convenience-type store. Apparently, Agness itself (with an even smaller store) was across the river - up another couple miles, across the bridge and back down the other side. We didn't visit Angess proper.

We bought a few groceries, but no fruits or veggies because they didn't have any. Not a single one. Not fresh nor frozen. We ended up with white pasta and Ragu for dinner and Triscits to hold our peanut butter and fruit spread for lunch the next day.

We moved on, hoping to find a good wilderness camp site for the night. We got to the road - the infamous road - and opted not to get on it yet, as it was our understanding that there was no water until you were down on the other side. So, we needed a spot to set up camp.

There was a dirt road just next to The Road, so we went down it a piece to see if there was a spot. There was - just off the dirt road to the left. Just enough space for the tent. We decided to look just a bit further. Just around the bend, and we're talking about 100 ft here, there road ended in a wide, open obviously used before camp site. We threw up our clothes line and went down to the stream to wash our clothes. Don't worry, we use environmentally friendly, biodegradable soap.

We got down to the stream to see this:

A story-book like little wading/swimming spot. We washed up, both clothes and us and frolicked a bit.


Then it was back up to the camp site to make dinner and explore the swing that we'd seen on the way down. Davan spent a good two hours on the swing that night and the next morning while Anthony and I did camp chores and wrote in our journals and other boring things like that.


We gave her a pass on chores at that site. One has to stay in shape for Do Jump, after all. Besides, it was hands down the best camp site we stayed in the whole trip, as far as Davan was concerned.


We went to bed with 50.92 miles under our belts and, it must be admitted, a bit of worry about the 30 mile road with no water and 17 miles of climbing up over 4000 feet coming in the morning. I kept telling myself I'd just take it slowly and stop as needed and it'd be alright...