Sunday, 3 June, 2012
It's time for a road trip! I had dropped Justine off at the airport yesterday - she was off to the UK for 10 days with her mom, which left me on my own, and so I decided to take a bit of a drive south with plans to take some pictures, focused on waterfalls and birds. I had been doing a bit of research over the past couple of days once the idea hit me, and I had some great locations all scoped out. It was going to be an ambitious trip, but I hoped the results would be worthwhile.
The Washington State Capitol in Olympia, as the sun started to set
Sunday was going to be a boring day. My plan was to head south and get past Portland beforehand stopped for the night. I didn't want to have to deal with traffic through Portland on a Monday morning. It was close to 10:30 by the time I had the truck all packed up and ready to go. Much later than I had planned. Fortunately the border was easy, and I was blasting south in no time. After getting past Seattle, I decided to make a stop at Olympia (the Washington State capitol) to stock up for the trip. The plan was to camp, and do all my cooking on the trip, to keep costs down. So I hit Costco and a supermarket and was well supplied.
As it was getting close to sunset, I decided to stick around, and take some pictures of the state Capitol buildings. I ended up with a pretty nice sunset, and the light was good on the buildings. Once the nice light faded out, I hit the road again and kept moving south. Thanks to road work, I had a mix up getting through downtown Portland. I didn't trust my instincts and ended up in the downtown core. Once I got myself turned around, construction work made for a number of detours but eventually I found the right route. I headed out of town, and kept driving until close to midnight.
One more view of the Capitol Building in Olympia.
I stopped in Sandy Oregon at a Best Western, my only concession on the trip as it was so late, and I didn't really want to be setting up camp in the dark. I got settled, and went off to sleep.