Our drive up from Neskowin, OR to Long Beach, WA was on US 101; as that is the only road along the coast for all of these towns. The road was again hilly and curvy with a few interesting sections. There was major road work around Tillamook, OR for a few miles. Not long but very scary at one point. Both lanes were narrowed with abrupt edges as they were resurfacing/repaving 1 lane in the middle. So, there was a guide car to lead us up the single lane in a particular section. The real scare came when there was a cross over in the middle of the construction.
The crossover was soft gravel at right angles to either of the paved sections. Remember we are towing 31 feet which makes turns, especially right angles, a bit more difficult than with a car. We slowed down and kept looking at the flagman. He kept saying come on – no problem. We slowly carefully negotiated the crossover and then had time to think about how many semis must have had to do the same maneuver that we had. I am glad we didn’t know ahead of time – sometimes that is scarier than the actual event.
The next interesting road event was as we approached Astoria, OR and the bridge over the Columbia River. Since we were so near the coast we really were crossing the mouth of the river – very wide. But that wasn’t the scary part. As we drove through Astoria, we saw a bridge way up high but at 90 degrees to our road. We saw car/trucks cross but couldn’t predict how to get there. Then we found out!!! We drove up a spiral road – up and up and up to the top of the bridge. Then we started down the bridge and roadway across the Columbia River to Washington forever. Or, at least that’s how it felt.
