Slowing Down

Today, was different from the last 5 as we only had 409 miles to travel. That is the least of the 6 days on the road. Since it was a short day, we decided to avoid the interstate when possible and start being true tourists! Instead of hopping on Route 90 to Route 5 and not seeing anything, we decided to stay on route 2 which took us across the whole state of Washington. We drove through a bunch of small towns that were separated by acres and acres of farm land and grazing land. The road was as straight as an arrow - we are not used to that from driving in WNC. As we got farther along, the terrain changed to rolling and then some long grades leading to dammed up rivers with lakes and spectacular hills around them. The scenery was outrageous - and then we entered the lower Cascade loop. This area was still heavily covered in snow with the depth of many feet right up to the road. It's hard to believe that there can be this much snow left on May 1st. We are hoping to drive the upper Cascade loop later in the week. This is questionable as they are working feverishly to open up the road. They use dozers to move the upper snow off the road so that the snow blowers can move the last 6 feet or so! They also have to work on keeping the crews from getting burried under avalanches. The problem is that most of the snow hit late this year and didn't have enough time to compress and stabilize the banks. But, we have made it into Chilliwack and will be waiting at the door at 8 AM for our orientation. 4 hours of training on the "rig" and then, we meet the driver with our trailer in Sumas for the "transfer." From there, he drives back to the factory and we drive to Deception Pass State Park on Whidbey Island. The

adventure continues!!!