This morning began with a superior coffee, as measured by the view: sitting in a dilapidated porch chair on the upper deck, pretending that 9am was early enough to claim that I was awake and inspired by the sunrise.
We bumped into Ashley, our AirBnB host on the yacht, while packing the cars. She gave us the rest of the story. She and her husband run a “AAA but for boats” service on that island. He does rescues and mechanical work, she does cabin and interior maintenance, washing and waxing, and wears many other hats, including AirBnB hosting. They live on another boat which serves as the main base of their businesses, but they don’t take it out of the marina. Instead, they have a few smaller work boats they use frequently.
Our goal was to get on the road fairly early because of the many stops scheduled for today, but we needed to refuel quickly. Eager to get moving, the Bumblebee died at the filling station and wouldn’t start. Again. Unfortunately, the cable-jiggling technique failed to produce the expected results.
While we waited for the starter to cool again, we reviewed the itinerary for the day and confirmed routes.
Once the Bumblebee was ready to go, we set off up the US30 from Portland out to Astoria. We stopped there for a quick meal at the Colombian Cafe, a Cajun seafood counter-diner in historic downtown. The food was fantastic.
While brunch was on the grill, we pulled a book off the shelf for George to read.
We walked back to the cars to regroup on the way out and the Bumblebee refused to start again. As we melted, sitting in our cars on main street, we thought of how to punish George and his automobile.
When we were ready to go again, we took the US101 north over the Astoria-Megler Bridge into Washington. It is the longest continuous truss bridge in North America, at 4.1 miles in length with a clearance below of 196 feet in high tide at its highest point. According to the dash-cam, it took us 7 minutes to cross it.
Everything in Washington is depressingly named. We took the SH401 bypass of US101 to skip Cape Disappointment, which took us along the stunningly beautiful Dismal Nitch instead. (I could not make this up if I tried.) We rejoined the 101 for a while before taking US12 to SH8 into Olympia where we met up with Evan’s mother.
To simplify parking, she met us at a Park-n-Ride just outside of town and drove us to the park along the Capitol grounds. Her car is strange; it’s incredibly quiet, cool fresh air comes out of these little holes in the dash and ceilings, the headlights are like rays of sunshine… it’s like she’s driving a car from the future.
We made the loop of Capitol Lake Park before Evan treated the whole group to dinner at a traditional family favorite, the Oyster House. Then we got back on the road.
To get to Indianola, both of Evan’s parents had recommended taking I5 through Tacoma instead of US101 and US3 through Shelton because Highway 3 is a tiny, dark, little highway with lots of twists and turns. Having done so much of that already, and with the sage advice of parental units, what were we to do?
We took 101 to the 3. After all, we haven’t used an Interstate since the drive from San Diego to LA.
We made it to Evan’s father’s beach house in Indianola around 11pm. Tomorrow is a day off. George has ordered a fix kit from Amazon to make the Bumblebee less useless, which we are all looking forward to him installing.