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This sounds amazing. What’s the worst that could happen?

I have to admit, when we arrived here last night, this place creeped me out. I could tell it was a beautiful house, in a beautiful area, but at night with the total darkness, separation from its neighbors, and constant creaking, George and I were both captured with a mild sense of “the call is coming from inside the house” “I see dead people” “she never sleeps” doom.

The morning light revealed what we knew this place to be all along: absolutely gorgeous and positioned high on a cliff overlooking the Puget Sound and Seattle.

We wandered over to the general store for breakfast sandwiches.

There, we ran into Max, a very large black lab who wandered around the store and its general vicinity like he owned the place. He would be right about that. The girl working the counter told me he lives up the road. I love this dog.

After breakfast, we walked out on the pier and then around the tide flats.

Thankfully, the kit to fix George’s starter did come in, so he got to work on that, primarily because the Bumblebee wouldn’t start when it was time to get photos of the cars.

Aiming to be as helpful as possible while George was working, Evan and I retreated to the back porch for beers until we were paged. The Bumblebee is fixed. Possibly.

Then we took turns driving up the winding road toward the house, passing my camera for stills and Evan’s for video. (And that one would have been so great if it, like, you know… contained the entire car.)

Then Evan staged a little “meet the cars” interview session wherein each of us described our vehicles, including what works and doesn’t, while the other two relentlessly and ruthlessly trash on it between sips of Maker’s.

(Yeah, I’m gonna be trying these again tomorrow at some point…)

After sunset on the back porch, we rode into town for quite possibly the best fish and chips I’ve ever had.

Over dinner we discussed plans. Ultimately, we’ve learned that our “one-night” cities like Paso Robles, Phillipsville, and Coos Bay were mostly layovers. None of us could really recall what any of them looked like in daylight. Making it all the way to Vancouver was originally my idea. Now it’s clear that we’d get in late at night and have to head out early the next day, so we wouldn’t actually do Vancouver. So I’m putting that city back on my “Places to Visit” list.

Instead, our furthest point for this adventure will be reached tomorrow: taking US101 up to Port Angeles and taking a ferry over to Victoria for lunch, and spending the afternoon driving the north edge of Olympic National Park. We should hit 2,000 miles somewhere along the way. We’ll come back down to Indianola tomorrow night, then take the ferry across the finish line into Seattle on Friday morning. I cannot believe we’re so close.

Wait what? Where are we? Even their IHOP closes at night!

With the Bumblebee broken down again, Evan and I decided to be helpful.

So Amazon says the starter fix kit shipment is delayed due to a ‘mechanical failure of truck or aircraft.’

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.

We made it to Washington! All three on their own power, who’d’ve thought?

Guys, there’s no start. Will one of you shake it?

Crossing the Astoria–Megler Bridge into Washington!