Drive Day

This morning we headed out from North Cascades and back into “civilization”! 

It took about 2 hours to drive back to Everett, we hadn’t planned on going back there necessarily, but my parents needed to pick up their main which had been delivered to general delivery there.

We arrived back at the Fred Meyer – the one we were at a few days ago that I thought needed it own “People Of” site – and as soon as we arrived I set about getting my pictures uploaded and blogs posted (and I’m glad I did because the wifi here isn’t as reliable as it was in Everett!). Then Mom and I went in to do our shopping and Dad went to fetch the mail. Unfortunately, the mail wasn’t there, we aren’t sure why, but it’s not my problem!

It was 1:00 and Mom and I were still wandering the aisles looking at everything – I decided that I wanted to get back to my computer and get some lunch so I quickly finished up my shopping, paid and went to put the groceries away. 

It was close to 2 before Mom and Dad were done with their shopping and we got some lunch and then I went to put gas in my RV, then we headed out from Everett about 3:00.

Before we left Dad had checked Google Traffic on his phone and he said “There are few red spots, but I-5 looks mostly clear” – so we headed down I-5. 

All was moving along for about 10 miles, then things came to a screeching halt.  We were close to Seattle and I was guessing it was normal traffic.  It wasn’t so bad inching along, every so often I caught a glimpse of Mt. Rainier in all her glory and that was exciting!

I didn’t realize how enormous Mt. Rainier is.  She’s HUGE!  She’s also sitting out by herself which makes her seem even bigger! Today the top was very clearly visible, but the bottom wasn’t so it almost looked like the mountain was an illusion!

I also killed some time trying to adjust my mirrors, especially the passenger side one – it has a regular mirror and a convex wide angle mirror.  There is no way to relay on just the regular mirror because it has a huge blind spot, so I played around with the position of the mirror so that I could use both mirrors effectively. 

Then we were stopped right under the exit sign for Federal Way, which is where my good friend Andy and his family used to live so I had to take a picture and send it to them.  Since we weren’t moving at all here I was able to send them the text!  Andy, Sherry and I texted back and forth a bit (I was only typing when the RV was completely stopped, which unfortunately was frequently!).

I’d thought that as soon as we got passed Tacoma things would open up.  I was wrong. It actually got worse.  We were totally stopped.  I pulled out my phone to check Google Traffic – it was read all the way to  Dupont - 10 more miles!  ugh!  And we’d turned south a bit and I could no longer see The Mountain.

At this point I started doing the math – we’d gotten on I-5 in Everett, mile 189, and we were currently close to mile 116….hmmmm….we’d traveled about 80 miles in 2 and half hours.  That had to be some kind of traffic record – shortest distance gone in the longest time!

Now, we must keep things in perspective here – yes, it was a LONG day of sitting in traffic, however we had attempted to traverse the entire Greater Seattle/Tacoma/Olympia Metropolitan area during rush hour.   It took 2.5 hours.  Let’s consider doing the same thing in let’s say DC – I dare anyone reading this to leave Baltimore MD at 3:00 pm EDT and drive to Fredericksburg.  I’d bet you wouldn’t make it under 4 hours!

No, sitting in traffic wasn’t high on the fun meter, but it did give me a chance to understand what is where in Seattle and see how it all works!  Most of the urban development is very concentrated – as soon as we drove south of Olympia there was nothing!  Well, that accounts for most of the traffic right there – a big city in a small space!  I was also able to see for myself where Seattle is in relation to other places and now I feel more like I "know” Seattle! 

We weren’t very far from Olympia when another big mountain came into view.  I thought it was Rainier again, but it looked different.  The biggest difference is that this mountain had no top! It must be Mt. St. Helens.  Not sure what I expected with Mt. St. Helens, but it’s HUGE also!  And it sits out by itself as well.  Like Rainier, St. Helens is covered in snow!

Even despite my day getting intimate with Seattle traffic, I’m currently thinking that the place to live might be between Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens – where you can see one out the front and one out the back! :-)