Today everyone slept in – even Koira!  We must all have been a little tired from battling the rain and wind yesterday.  We were even late for the complimentary breakfast at the hotel but Jeremy managed to get the hostess to turn the waffle-maker back on for two more sets of waffles.

We decided to start out in our rain suits today as the weather forecasts were predicting rain all the way to the coast.  The ladies at the visitor centre in Yakima had also warned Jeremy that there was a chance of snow through the pass.  At first we thought we were sitting in our portable saunas for nothing, but then the rain caught up to us.  Even despite the drizzle and the cold through the pass, the Old Natches Highway and Gifford Pinchot National Forest was beautiful.  It is right up there with some of the best motorcycling roads we have been on.  It was a nice surprise.   If Jeremy had known how nice it was going to be, he would have worn his helmet cam again.

Thankfully, we did not encounter any snow.  Jeremy was still very happy to have his heated jacket, though.  I had mine on, but I did not plug it in.  I think I am getting heat from Jeremy’s jacket just sitting behind him as I did not feel the cold at all.  Also, I think he shelters me from the cold and rain.  And then Koira probably gets almost nothing being the third “person” up.  What a spoiled dog!  We keep telling people she is riding in more comfort than us!

Although we did not encounter snow, what we did encounter on the Old Natches Highway was a construction zone.  It is really one of the risks of traveling off-season just before winter on some of these popular scenic byways.  I noticed a tight clump of about twenty cars and trucks pass us going the other direction and wondered how that could have happened when the road was so quiet on our side.  A few miles down the road, we found out how that could happen.  We came upon stopped traffic and people wandering around and walking their dogs.  The porta-potties setup at the side were also not a good sign.  Jeremy went to talk to the other travelers while I unloaded the dog, not sure if I should bother taking of my helmet yet.  The news from Jeremy – a wait time of 40 minutes.  Well, that is definitely the record for us so far.   We wandered around, took pictures, talked to people, watched the flagger, watched people ask the flagger how much time was left, watched these people take a little hike, and then watch these same people walk up to the flagger and ask how much time they had been away on their hike and how much time they had left to wait.  Talk about little kids asking “Are we there yet?”  The wait ended up being more like 25 or 30 minutes.  The flagger probably exaggerates the amount of time he tells people so they are pleasantly surprised when it is time to go.  I imagine that is also a tactic that parents use in the car with little kids too.

After the Old Natches Highway, we came across a sign for a Mount St. Helens scenic lookout.  Well, we could not pass that up.  Jeremy remembers the ash that fell in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, from the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980.  It is hard to believe the ash traveled that far, but it did.  He remembers his dad giving his brothers and him little film canisters to go out and collect some of the ash from the yard.   The weather was not good for viewing at the lookout, but we took some photos anyway.  You will just have to imagine the volcano and the crater hidden in the clouds like we did.

After the Mount St. Helens “imagination” exercise, we were ready for some lunch.  We found one of our favourite road trip restaurants – a Shell gas station – in Mossyrock.  As usual, Jeremy came out with a tasty lunch – burritos and egg rolls with “raspberry jam and coconut sprayed” Twinkies for dessert.  Koira got called “Fifi” by some Washington power company workers who stopped in for lunch at the gas station too.  I was a little insulted for her, but they did not mean it in a bad way.  They were pretty impressed that she was riding with us, despite her “Fifiness.”

We almost took our rain gear off at Mossyrock but decided we could stand the saunas just a little while longer just in case.  It was a good decision because we hit the heaviest rain yet that day about ten minutes down the road.  It did not last long and then we were into sunshine.  In Raymond, we finally stopped at one of the little espresso hutts we kept seeing all through Washington.  Even the smallest little towns, have an espresso hutt.  Seattle is know for its coffee chains, so we are thinking all these little espresso hutts all over Washington are to lure in the caffeine-addicted tourists from Seattle . . . and Calgary.  It was pretty good coffee and the little caffeine boost gave us the energy for that last little stretch to Highway 101 and Oysterville.

Now, I have been talking about Oysterville and Oysterville Sea Farms for several weeks now.  I had Jeremy pretty excited about fresh oysters.  I thought it was going to be a touristy town with some small hotels and a few restaurants.  No, I was wrong.  The drive in was nice along the peninsula and we got to see some cranberry bogs, but Oysterville is kind of like a little Upper Canada Village, but the homes are actually private residences with historic plaques at the gate.  And the restaurant – Oysterville Sea Farms – closed at 5:00 PM.  We were there at 5:20 PM.  Getting to places just a little too late seem to be a common theme on our road trips, unfortunately.

Plan B was to try and find seafood and a place to stay in Astoria, Oregon.  The Astoria Bridge crossing the mouth of the Columbia River was interesting.  It took us from Washington to Oregon.  It ran along the water for a little while and then seemed to start going up like the start of a roller coaster.   I was relieved to see it was it as not too steep on the other side and you gradually wound down into the town of Astoria.

We found a room at the Best Western Lincoln Inn beside the Port of Astoria.   On the advice of the hotel clerk, we decided to try and get some Greek takeout from the restaurant under the bridge.  On the motorcycle, it did not seem that far from the bridge to the hotel.  Walking, it was a lot longer.  We took the River Walk as far as we could along the ocean.  So, it was a nice walk, really.  Seeing a “wharf” rat scurrying away from a boat near our hotel was a little disquieting, though.  Is it a good thing to see it running away from the hotel instead of toward it?

Unfortunately, after the long walk, our craving for Greek food was not satisfied.  The twenty-four hour Greek restaurant was closed . . . just for us.  We ended up having to get KFC takeout.  I was beginning to think we would not even get that as they were seriously understaffed and the drive through was their priority.  They did give me a 10% discount for having to wait for so long.  Maybe we will have better luck with restaurants tomorrow.