Gone West 7

Gone West 7

Astoria to Seattle.

After getting the key fob sorted, we crossed the large steel lattice bridge. 

We were once again travelling along our old friend, Highway 101, this took us for the first 100 miles or so through some of the least interesting scenery of our trip so far. Though the highway wasn’t spectacular (it had also left the coast highway so also no nice sea and coastal views), the road passed in the main through pasture lands and small towns with names that gave lie to the original settlers homelands like Aberdeen and other Mac names. 

The scenery suddenly changed, the hills became forested and large pines made the road into a tunnel, we had entered the Olympic State Park.

At lake Quinault we turned off the main highway and into the Park. This is actually technically not part of the Quinault  Indian reserve, but part of the Olympic National Forest, it was a wonderful drive along a lake, through wooded slopes and small babbling waterfalls. 

We stopped at the village of Quinault by the side of the lake to take some photographs, when suddenly there was a flash across the front of the car and an Osprey rose above us clutching a fish in its talons, I was of course too late to capture it for posterity, but I still have it indelibly printed on my mind’s eye for the rest of my life.

A native American getting onto/into his trusty steed

We returned via the same route to the main highway and headed west, then north to the upper most tip of Western USA and the most northerly part of our journey.  We turned Jucy’s head east and found a small campsite for the night; it nestled right under the mountains of the national park.

This RV site was attached to a general store and gas station (filling station to you and I), it was called Shadow Mountain General Store. The site was tiered but the slopes were not steep and it was wonderfully laid out and had all we needed, Bathrooms (toilets), showers, Wi-Fi, water and electricity. Everything wonderful and clean, we had our evening meal and had an early evening as the next day I wanted to go into Port Angeles, a port I had visited while my ship (the Silvercove) was Vancouver Island loading Lumber for the Caribbean islands.

We set off early, but the mountain below which we were located showed its face through the clouds. 

This is the reason this site was called Shadow Mountain and the area the Olympic Rain Forest.  

We get up early most days as we like to be on the road to beat the crowds, what crowds did I hear you ask? 

This is a part of the USA that you visit only if you need to, it still has a primeval beauty, pristine forests and clean, cool air. 

We headed along the 101 and into Port Angeles, we had just missed seeing a ferry leaving for Victoria on Vancouver Island, we watched as it slipped around the end of Ediz Hook, the spit of land that protects the port and into the straits of Juan de Fuca (this had of course caused some wry comments, like” are we in the Fuca Channel yet”).

She went that-a-way

The ferry in the middle of the Fuca Channel

There was very little open early, but we walked along the harbour and took some photographs of Canadian geese that had congregated at a little bay, we wondered did they have green cards or were they just visiting.

There are also two bells of atonement hanging in the little park, one a coastguard cutters, the other a present from Japan a nice touch.

We decided to fill up Jucy at the local Safeway (Linda had become a member and so we got points and a good at the shops. The next part of our Journey would be back into civilisation proper, a big city, we were going to visit an ex- colleague and friend of Linda’s from her Kodak days. Upon retirement he had moved into a brand new house that looked down onto Seattle.

But first the little job of getting Jucy and us there, we had decided to take the ferry which crossed from Kingston not the one Jamaica or on Thames, but the one in Washington State USA.

Jucy and a couple catching a bit of shut eye

The other shore and the other ferry

The ferry sails across the large sea inlet to Edmonds a little North of Seattle. We travelled the 101 until it joined the 104, here we parted company for the last time, we to go on to Seattle and Highway 101 on to Olympia where it disappears, swallowed up by the interstate highway 5.

The Ferry crossing was uneventful, loaded, full ahead, discharged, a procedure I knew so well, nothing new here. We arrived in Edmunds and immediately took a wrong turning to get out of the harbour, we shall blame our Satnav, not our bad navigation, but at last we were on the main Highway into Seattle. Norbert and Daniela live in a suburb of Seattle called Renton, this overlooks Mercia Island a fine piece of desirable real state, but to get there we had to pass a turn off for Newcastle!!!! What had we taken another wrong turning?