We were up early this morning and had walked to the car park and brought the car back to the Hostel by 8am in time for breakfast. Wonder of wonders the sky was clear and the sun was shining. We were on the road by 9am and being Sunday morning it was easy to leave the city. We drove the main highway south to leave Washington State and enter Oregon because this was the most direct path. The highway was busy enough but not frantic because there were few trucks. As one loomed up beside us doing more than his 60 mph Bob commented that it felt like being the lettuce leaf in a BLT. Not far out of Seattle Mt Rainier appeared ahead of us. At 14,411 feet it reared above it's low personal cloud bank. I was just disappointed that it's misty cloak at that hour of the morning meant it was pointless to try for a photo.
The first 40 miles were just a continuous urban sprall from Seattle. I forgot to mention yesterday that Seattle is the home base for Microsoft, Amazon and Boeing. We were told when travelling on the Trolley that Amazon employs an estimated 20% of the city's work force and it is expected to rise to 25% next year. They have purchased apartment blocks for their employees so that they can live close to work. Bill Gates is dog friendly and their head quarters have a floor set aside for employees dogs while they are at work. How the other half lives.
We were able to leave Hway 5 after two hours of steady driving and moved to the quieter Hway 101 which follows the Pacific Coastline all the way to the California border. We had a few tense moments when we pulled into a State Park to have our lunch and discovered the usual fee. Bob said he was not b---- well paying a day use fee for half an hours use of a picnic table. We decided to detour to the boat launching area prior to the honour box and and found picnic tables there. The other slightly disconcerting feature was the roadside warnings that we were driving through tsunami vulnerable areas.
The coastline is beautiful with sandy beaches not dissimilar to ours interspersed with rocky headlands, pines right to the water and holiday towns. As we drove further south the towns were more spread apart by rural activites such as cattle and pigs. We couldn't see the latter but we could certainly smell them. At one stage we passed through a very threatening cloud band but this didn't last for long and the day remained cool but sunny. A nice change.
Tonight we are comfortably ensconced in a motel a stones throw from a seafood restaurant. Photos separately.
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