Day 28: Albany OR - Montesano WA

Nice Motel Lady, unlike the rabble present in Battle Mountain, complimented me on my luvverly flowing locks this morning so yar boo sucks!

So, yes, cyclists.  Now in some of the more remote parts of this vasty and varied land cyclists are permitted to ride on the hard shoulder of Interstate highways, because there's no alternative route.  However, I'm pretty sure than Oregon's Willamette Valley is nowhere near remote enough.  So what the blazes was that chap doing on the northbound cabbageway of I-5 near Salem, and how on earth did he wind up on the central reservation¹ without being killed utterly to DETH?

It rained and Portland was fairly be-trafficked, though these facts are not connected.  Over the Mighty Columbia, north a bit and then up WA-503 to Cougar² before turning off onto NF-83 with is a bit like the Aufderheide Scenic Byway but with an occasionally terrible surface.  At the end of it you can get a fab view of Mount St Helens, or at least you could if the clouds hadn't got there first chiz.

Mount St Helens.  There.  Behind that cloud!

Lower down than the clouds are some remains of what happened when it went KABLOOEY in May 1980.

Volcanic mess.

There is also a trailhead to Ape Canyon where, it is said, a group of miners fought a running battle with some, or more, Bigfoot in 1924.  And a Several of lakes, which are rather more credible than tales of giant Munkehs because you can walk down the jetty and take pictures of Yale Reservoir.  Like zis:

If you turn left at the bottom of NF-83 you can get to Windy Point on the other side of the mountain but as that would have added another 120 miles to the trip, I didn't.  Instead I went back to I-5 and up to Longview, where they like sqrls.  No, wait!  Come back!  They have (at least) four bridges slung across the roads, that the sqrls might cross without being smooshed by a three tonne pickup truck.

Nutty Narrows bridge, Longview

Except:

ONOZ!

And they have a giant sqrl:

And some life-size ones:

Sqrl.  Longview. Wednesday.

But also Horrible Gooses:

And an Interesting Locomotive:

Someone posted a video of one of these in action on Farcebok the other day but I can't remember who...

Enough about Longview.  To Station Camp!  The quickest way to get there is actually to cross the Lewis & Clark bridge back to the Oregon side of the Mighty Columbia, go west on US-30 to Astoria and then return to Washington via the Astoria-Megler bridge.  Because the road on the Washington side wanders around willy-nilly.  On the Astoria-Megler bridge there was a squadron of low-flying pelicans, albeit not as numerous as the veritable flotilla that mobbed my grate frends Marieke and Arnold down in California the other day.  Sadly you can't stop on the Astoria-Megler bridge.  Not even for pelicans.

Station Camp, where Lewis, Clark & co stayed to dry out after escaping from Dismal Nitch a few miles upriver, is a bit of a letdown for L&C fanZ0rZ because it seems mostly to ignore them in favour of the Chinook.  Though in all fairness the Chinook got there first.

Chinook canoes

There was also a rather elegant green and gold snek, looking a bit like a very thin Australian rugby player, but he slid off into a hole in the wall before I could point the camera at him.  Teh Internets suggests he was probably some kind of garter snek.

Adios, Mighty Columbia!
(Sob)

From here the Idiot TwatNav tried to direct me back to WA-401 and WA-4 to get onto the northward-trending US-101.  Because she hadn't seen the signs saying the 401 was closed. But she did manage to figure out the closure of eastbound US-30 the other week.  What's that all about, eh?

US-101 is rather scenic in these parts with forests and bits of the sea and not many towns replete with traffic lights and stop signs.  Though it did have the usual quota of motons who can't decide whether to drive at 35 mph, 45 or 60, so randomly shift between all three.  US-101 in this parts is very twisty and therefore difficult to overtake on and I hate everybody, or at least the tube with small SUV and the two Van Moof bikes hanging on the back, thereby obscuring his rear number plate and back lights.

I am now in Montesano, as you can tell from what it says up there ^^^^.  The motel has a black and white cat called Figaro who, in the mnner of cats everywhere, stalked off disdainfully when I tried to tickle his ears.  Also the Port Townsend-Coupeville ferry is fully booked on Friday chiz, thereby thwarting my plan to, er, use it.  Alternative route being sought for getting to Viva! Sea-Tac.

Stop press: Horseybank plc, I've been in USAnia four weeks so fuck off with your suddenly declining payment for tomorrow night's lodging.  You utter shitlarks.  Especially as after two expensive txt msgs and a hopefully not-expensive phone call on this place's landline the payment went through fine.

"Did someone say 'squirrel'?"

1. Or "median", as the Natives call it.
2. I shan't tell you again, Rogerzilla.