Washington wow!

I have only a few photos for you today but will try to fill in the gaps with words.

Soon after heading west out of Ellensburg I started seeing this breathtaking peak behind ranges of nearer, lower mountains. Check it out, Jim! On my map it appears that it's part of the Wenatchee Range. Fortunately I-90 passed it to the south; the passes I did go through in the Cascades had no snow nor even pronounced weather effects like those I saw coming through the Rockies.

When I hit I-5 toward Tacoma, the traffic coming from Seattle had the edge and intensity I'm used to from DC. Not much of the politeness I'd seen on the freeways over the last couple of weeks, but not to worry - after Tacoma as I headed up Routes 16 and 3 on the west shore of the Sound the politeness returned, though Washington State drivers do seem awfully fond of driving slowly in the left lane.

Lots of gorgeous views along the way that I had no way to stop and photograph: those passes in the Cascades, the soaring suspension bridge over the Tacoma Narrows, Navy ships docked in Bremerton, and everywhere water, water, water, and evergreens. On Route 3 a message sign warned of major delays due to a collision; they were indeed major - more than 30 minutes barely moving, and when we finally passed the accident scene I saw why: a single lane of alternating north- and southbound traffic was being directed past a truck in the ditch whose cargo of some sort of large sacks was being transferred by hand to another truck. With this delay I abandoned my plan to drive across the Olympic Peninsula to the Pacific.

After checking in here in Sequim (pronounced Squim) I did the 30-minute drive to Port Angeles to check out the ferry schedule for tomorrow morning. A block from the ferry landing is the Town Pier with an observation tower (sorry, Alex, it's only about four stories tall) where I took this photo across the Strait of Juan de Fuca that connects Puget Sound with the Pacific and is the U.S.-Canada border. You can see the hills of Vancouver Island on the horizon about 20 miles away behind the anchored tanker, with their own cloud system above. (Click on the photo for a larger image, still about 1/6 its original size.)

About an hour later, after photographing a lot of the fun outdoor sculptures along the Port Angeles waterfront, talking to the ferry folks, and arranging my lodging in Vancouver Monday and Tuesday night with the patient help of Bob at the Port Angeles-Victoria Tourist Bureau, I returned to the Town Pier since the ferryboat Coho was due for its evening crossing. Sure enough, here it came. To give you an idea of its size, it holds about 200 cars! That's it for today; I'm off to find dinner.

I keep remembering things I should have included in earlier posts. This one's about the ubiquity of advertising a couple of months ago for the 2010 Census. My fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant in Ellenburg last night reads: "Put down your chopsticks and get involved in Census 2010!" Not as timely now, and not a fortune (but few of them are about the future anyway). Our tax dollars at work?