Seaside to Lacey
I had flexible plans for the morning — either go out and fly my new kite, or sit on the balcony with a book. So much for either of those: it was misty, windless and cold. Birds had taken over the beach in their hundreds.
We walked into Seaside for lunch: a shrimp sandwich (actually prawns in an "english muffin") for me; fish ‘n’ chips for Debbie. I spotted murals in Seaside that I’d missed last night.
Before leaving, we walked to the Lewis and Clarke saltworks monument, which was moderately interesting but ultimately not really worth the walk. Maybe we should have driven…
With that, we got back on the road, and followed the coast North to Astoria. From what we saw, Astoria was quaint. It’s the oldest town West of the Missouri River, according to one book. We were mostly looking out for somewhere to buy clothes or makeup while still in sales-tax-free Oregon. We weren’t bothered enough to search properly though, and Astoria and indeed Oregon passed without us passing anything appropriate.
As we crossed the Columbia River into Washington, Debbie claims she forgot to say "Oregone"…
We came off I-5 for the Mt. St. Helens visitor centre, and kept going East until we were satisfied we’d had an adequate view. From the Forest Learning Centre, just inside the "blast zone", we got a good idea of how much peak was missing, and good view of the lava flows coming down the valley.
The area around Mt. St. Helens has recovered well in the 25 years since the eruption — it only goes to show how good nature is at moving in — although man has sped things up by spreading seeds around the lava fields. Vegetation helps prevent rock and sand from continuing to shift down the valley, apparently.
With time ticking on, and considering Mt. St. Helens "seen", we got back on I-5, and attempted to find a room in Olympia. Olympia is Washington’s state capitol. The interstate signage directed us downtown for "gas food lodging", and although this gave as nice drive-by of the state capitol building, it didn’t give us any particularly appealing hotel options. Instead, we consulted our various chain motel directories (one tends to accumulate these), and went a couple more exits up I-5.
To my surprise, one junction before ours, there were exits marked "Sleater-Kinney". Sleater-Kinney is a band whose album The Woods I’ve been enjoying lately. I’d been led to believe they were from Portland, but some digging around reveals they’re from Olympia. I have to assume the band is named after the street, not vice versa.
As it turns out, our hotel, a Comfort Inn, is a couple of blocks from Sleater-Kinney Road.
We ate at a Red Lobster restaurant, which was nice. I had rainbow trout — a little dry from being cooked filleted, but otherwise lovely — and Debbie had Tilapia, which she enjoyed but I thought a little bland (a judgement of the fish, not the cooking).
After that, we had Chores, since tomorrow we fly home. The first chore was to empty the car. In it we found many discarded coffee and soft drink cups, leaflets from various tourist attractions, cans and water bottles, carrier bags, crushed Goldfish Cracker bags, fridge magnets and emotional baggage*.
With three bags of assorted trash, junk, garbage and litter thrown in a dumpster, and one bag of stuff we wanted retained, the remaining chores were to write this diary and to pack our bags in a manner fit for the flights — tasks which we have distributed in the obvious way.
(* "Joke" stolen from Sean Condon’s Drive Thru America)