Hadn’t gone five miles when i passed this cranberry farm with the farmer sitting there working on something in his lap. Probably checking his email.
And shortly thereafter reached the Naselle River
Then on in to South Bend for breakfast at Hamp’s, where i got smart and ordered the smallest thing on the menu, a breakfast sandwich of ham and egg on an English muffin. Full of full-size friendly locals, is that all you’re gonna eat? all touting the parts of their state a retired SF writer just had to see.
Before i even left town, though, there was this retired device that had been used to skid logs down to the river.
And i guess it was at this point that all the cholesterol i’ve been consuming finally settled onto the walls of my cranial arteries and things started going wrong. Like i somehow missed the turnoff to Olympia and ended up in Aberdeen, where in partial compensation i spotted this truck.
Aberdeen is not a bad little city, actually, but one with a terribly confusing system of signage that caused me to somehow miss another turn and find myself on a one-way street heading out of town in the wrong direction. Threaded my way back the other direction on a side street until i got to a point that felt correct and then turned the corner, where i spotted this good omen. Same design as the Third Street bridge in San Francisco, so it’s gotta be a Strauss.
That wasn’t my bridge, but i went into a store across the street and confessed that i’d got myself totally turned around but was trying to get to Olympia. The nice guy said, “Turn left onto the ugly new bridge at the end of this block. That’s the highway.” Sure enough, it was, and before too long i crossed another bridge, this one quite handsome.
And then made it to downtown Seattle and took the Seneca Street exit to Pike’s Place Market, but as i was rolling down Seneca i realized that even though “passport” was at the top of my list of things to bring as well as at the top of the list Jeff had made for me, i had not brought it. So as the despair swept over me, i parked the car and rode the Segway down to the market and took this pic to prove i got that far.
The young men at the famous Pike Place Fish Market at the front of the food area were interested in the Segway, and i gave several of them trial rides as the others performed their famous flying fish tricks.
Then i returned to the car, totally bummed out and depressed over not being able to see my friends in Vancouver. So i started driving home. Couldn’t help noticing as i passed through Portland that it is just packed with fabulous old bridges and a stunning new one in what appeared at the glance i got to be the single pylon style, not to mention some marvelous new architecture. Might want to visit here some day although i’m thinking now that that pylon bridge may have been in Tacoma.