A nice long drive
Posted: Tuesday, June 17, 2008 by Travis Cody inSo last Saturday we bit the gasoline price bullet, filled up the tank, packed some snacks, and took off for the coast. We put around 500 miles on the Liberty. We did get about 23mpg, which is great. But I had to fill up the tank twice, once at $4.35 per and then again in the afternoon at $4.39 per.
I suspect that when I fill it up again later this week that I'll be paying over $4.50 per. **sigh** I also suspect that our next trip just may be by train.
Anyway, we travelled south on I-5 to Olympia where we cut west on Hwy 8 toward Aberdeen and Hoquiam. We didn't have much traffic at all, which made things enjoyable. I put the cruise control on 65 and we turned up the tuneage.
As we got to the coast, we picked up Hwy 109 out to Ocean Shores.
Here's a bit of what we saw.
We parked in the lot at the entrance to the beach, and then walked up a little side trail to get a better look at all the kites.
Although there was quite a bit of gray and overcast throughout the day, there was also plenty of bright blue sky.
Now they aren't kidding either! We drove some of the escape route...it's a two lane road and if you start from this sign, you're in some trouble because there is no high ground nearby. If the horn goes off when you're standing here, drop your stuff and grab your loved ones...and run inland as fast as you can. You might get lucky.
Although, the last time a tsunami hit the coast of Washington was in 1964 after the Great Alaska earthquake. 
This is a beach where you can drive out onto the sand and park.
It wasn't really quiet, but we did still get the sound of these waves. They didn't exactly crash onto the beach, nor does it look like this is a surfing beach.
Neither Pam nor I are much for horseback riding, although we do both love horses. I can think of several blogging pals who would love to ride one of these horses along the shoreline.
It was chilly and quite windy at the beach, so we ate our sammiches and then climbed back into the Liberty for some driving along beautiful roads that looked like this.
We finished the trip driving the 101 loop around Olympic National Forest. This is skirting around the edge of the forest in the south Puget Sound. And those are bug stains on the windshield.
It was a long trip...500 miles and about 10 hours. But we had a great day.
Hey, neat!
I remember reading about that Washington tsunami in one of my oceanography books.
What?
I'm a nerd. We nerds LOVE oceanography stuff.