June 20 - July 1: Oregon

7/1 - Seaside (5 miles -- on foot)
i spent much of my last morning of this adventure on the beach at seaside. it's a lovely little town, tho' is getting noticed & visited more & more by tourists.
on my walk from ollie's place to the beach i stopped to smell the sweet peas. i couldn't resist taking a picture of this timely red-white-&-blue array. i bet you can almost smell them from there.
on down the street, now lined with small shops, i noticed a woman near the edge of the roadway, brown work gloves on her hands, using a knife to scrape the slits of a grate in the street.
a little later i found her, as you can see in this photo, lifting the grates around trees on the sidewalk to clean out the cigarette butts & other litter that collects there. her name is marty. she has owned businesses in seaside for decades; she currently runs a costume shop. & she also has a contract with local merchants to keep the street clean. she does a great job, & it makes a big difference.
on to the ocean. there i met laura & lucy. (lucy's the one with 4 legs.) they've moved to seaside recently from arizona. laura is looking for a more relaxed lifestyle that doesn't require 60-70 hours a day at a job, & i bet she'll find it in seaside. she has a new little gift shop downtown & lives nearby.
there were lots of people on the beach, i thot, for 8 a.m. several were digging in the sand. here are a couple of them with their digging equipment. they showed me the razor-backed clams they'd found, & they also ended up giving me 3 sand dollars. they told me to soak them in bleach water when i get home. what a wonderful souvenir i'll have of my last day on the west coast.
i hadn't realized that seaside is the official end of lewis & clark's trip in 1805-06. we've been following their footsteps for quite a while as we pedalled across the west.
i thot this photo of me near the lewis & clark statue was a fitting end to my great 2000 biking adventure & of this 3-month web report. you probably can't see it, but along the edge of the pedestal on which they're standing--near my right hand--are the words, 'end of the trail.'
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