Saturday, May 24, 2014

The next part of our journey

In the week since Anne and Roy left us we have managed 80 miles with the trailer, though we have seen some beautiful sights, done some washing and sorted the car. Now we are going to do some miles as we hop over the Seattle Metropolis. Today we will drive to Enumclaw, which is at the start of Route 410, gateway to Mount Rainier. It is about 120 miles. We will drive across the Hood Canal Bridge and down the length of Kitsap Peninsula, not quite an island it is about 60 miles by 20 miles and joined to the mainland by an isthmus about a mile wide. Notable as we will pass the Trident submarine base, where they keep both submarines and missiles. Then to exit the isthmus we cross the fabled Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which (un)fortunately is not the original 'Galloping Gertie' bridge that I loved to show kids in science lessons. 
The phenomenon was called aerolastic flutter, which doesn't sound very dangerous, till you look at the video above. Now replaced by two separate suspension bridges, for which a toll is charge only on the Easterly direction bridge - our way of course. Still it is one of those places that is on my 'bucket list'.
Here is some information on the new suspension bridge:

Sorry about the annoying music on these, but you can turn the sound down.
We stay at Enumclaw for two nights, then drive on round the north side of Mt Rainier to a small town in the North Cascades called Leavenworth, where we hope to see some more nice mountains. From there we will drive Route 2 to another man made iconic monument - The Grand Coulee Dam. This should put us in Eastern Washington, near Spokane by next weekend, though the locals call anything East of the Cascades Eastern Washington. That is the plan, lets see if it works
Incidentally I have update the Mount St Helens Blog to include footage of the eruption

1 comment:

  1. Wow! 80 miles in a week - no steady on! Hope you get to see the laser light show at the Grand Coulee Dam and remember while you're waiting to see it to sing Lonnie's Song.

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