Astoria, Or ---> Seattle. Pt. 4 Lots of things happened

On Monday, we had breakfast and set out in the dark campground. All the colors were saturated, again that dark redness to the earth which may have been a layer of pine needles but just looked brick red to me. It was foggy and gray again. A couple miles away from the campground we stopped at a history spot, the Jackson House. Here's a little history on the house from the Washington State Park site.

"Located nearby, the John R. Jackson House was the first American pioneer home built north of the Columbia River. It was constructed in 1845 by the man for whom it is named. The original house has deteriorated completely. The current log cabin was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. The Jackson family has donated some original pioneer artifacts, which are on display at the cabin."

We met a fellow cyclotourist, Andrew, who was checking out the sign. He had camped locally at a 'non-traditional' camping spot. One of the interesting characters that we met on the trip for sure.


Fortuitously we stumbled upon an ESPRESSO shop right after this. Thank you, touring gods. By this time, Zeke probably knew that Alice stops for espresso. It's hard to get up at 5:30, with no coffee and no shower, and get happily on the bike. But my choice of stimulants sure does help. Good thing too, because we started hitting some lumpy bits after this. Hello Tauscher Wall. This is where we learned both of our climbing songs. Mine is 'Big Rock Candy Mountain'.



Eventually the sun came out to visit in Washington.  We crossed some lovely rivers, discovered that we both knew the words to most of the songs on They Might Be Giants 'Flood', hit some mixed terrain,  and had a lovely lunch in the yard of Gloria and Dave.






We enjoyed almost an entire jar of pickles here!

Somewhere before Shelton, we Scamped. Aside from the not having a bathroom part, it was nice. A very strange thing kept happening though, just about every hour two military helicopters appeared to escort a plane, right over our camp. It felt like the aliens were finally landing. I don't think that I slept that well, but I did not tend to think that raccoons  bears or mountain lions were going to get us in this spot.

The next day we were up and out of camp early. We had two goals: second breakie and making it to the Bremerton ferry by 1:45. I can't remember what happened for breakfast. Maybe that means we skipped it. Oh wait, Zeke remembers!

We did arrive by 1:45 and we ate ALL the food at a Frenchie café.

The ferry is awesome and free for walk or ride aboard passengers going to Seattle.

Oh wait, there is a whole part that I'm skipping. One riding around Mason Lake, which was super fun and full of roller(s) coasters. And the most stressful bit. SR3 from Belfair to Bremerton. If you value your life, I do not recommend this stretch of road. We were supposed to turn onto Old Belfair Highway, but missed the turn.

We ended up on a fast moving highway with big trucks moving at the speed of sound. Yuck.



Oh right back to the pretty ferry!



There was some well deserved sitting in the sun and relaxing done on the ferry, well for me anyway. Zeke was losing his sh*t looking at everything!

We arrived in Seattle.




I think I'll leave the train for another posting, it was pretty special.