Running the Roads July 26-28

Travel day Monday but too hot(triple numbers) to sightsee the fruit and wheat country.  It's interesting how "they" are recovering the high dessert land, irrigating it and turning it into productive acreage. It is possible your bread originated here. We napped and went out for pizza at a local eatery.  There was a single patron over watching a baseball game and one other couple.  We were shown to a table next to the couple and he struck up a conversation.  Turns out they are from St. Albans, WV.  Small world.  They(he)is in the military and they were on their way to a new posting near Seattle. Small world.  Don't often find folks from WV when we travel.  Tuesday saw us on the highway headed toward the mountain we'd seen off and on during Monday's travel.  It kept getting bigger and we finally established that it was Mt. Ranier.  We traveled up I-5(also the roadbed of US 12 at this point) and onto US 12 as it veered west over the mountain at the base of the mountain.  Glimpses of the glacier topped mt. peeped thru the trees several times.  A "scenic overlook" pulled us off the road and the picture says it all.  WEll, maybe not all, because the pix does not do it justice.  As we came down the west side of the range it began to cool.  Tonight I will plug in the electric blanket, "just in case.   Now is is Wed.  Didn't have a strong enough signal to upload last night.  Didn't need the electric blanket, but as the Boy Scouts say: Be Prepared.  The 101(US 101) circles the Olympic National Park so we took it about halfway.  I can understand why Washing ton is called the Evergreen State.  Lots of evergreens covering the mountainsides.  Lots of logging.  This is "spotted owl" country and the logging outfits are posting signs showing they are replanting what they take and when they anticipate harvesting again.  It took us longer to do the trip than planned as WDOT is doing lots of roadwork and on 2 lane roads have to shut down one side for a while.  There were 3 such "inconveniences" today so I imagine we "lost" an hour.  Big deal.  Landed here and did laundry(isn't that exciting?)  Tomorrow we have sightseeing planned and a trip to a tire place to get a new tire for the RV(not one replaced when we had the axle work done last year). Have the electric blanket plugged in again.  It is getting a little cool already and it isn't 8PM here yet(Pacific Time).  Off to fold laundry now. Goodnight.