Day 67, Friday June 8, 2018 , From Longview to Bellingham WA. Rainin' all the way,

That was some drive and ride.  The last time we had rain was on April 28th In Harlingen TX, so I would say for weather on a vacation, that was a great 39 days. That day, in Harlingen,  it stopped raining before noon.

The roads up I-5 and the bypass around Seattle on 512 and 167  to I-405 and eventually I-5 again, were fine for the most part, but the bottlenecks on many of the merging traffic lane in the cities were horrendous. One stretch near the approach to I-405,  for six miles, took 30 minutes. There were many of these bottlenecks.  The problem is there is a new bridge and interchange being built at the I-405 entrance from the south and north, and that stops traffic both ways.  Seattle knows the problem but whether they will ever get it smoothed out remains to be seen. I doubt it, as there are too many cars and not enough "other ways"to get places.  It is ranked as the 23rd worst traffic in the world. The tanker crash this week shut down WA 99 for 8 hours.  So it could be worse.

This was the end of the back ups and gridlock...(So we hoped. At this point we had reached I-405)

The new interchange evens blocks all traffic for sometimes as long as 6-8 hours.

A new interchange includes many ancillary projects that are connected to it.

But we survived and actually made good time. Ruth was able to see Mt. St. Helens from Longview and later on as we turned north, to see Mt Rainer even though it was cloud obscured at top. She was excited about that.  Me ...? I was watching the road.  (See photo)

OK, so you have to look hard, well so did Ruth!  But there it is  (Mt Rainier) even if you can't see all 14,800 feet of it.

We ate lunch in a Denny's parking lot as we had leftovers from our stop at Arby's from yesterday to eat at lunch. So "Arby's lunch in a Denny's Parking lot"!

The rain was quite steady but not a down pour and not the splashing we get sometimes on I-80 going into Chicago.  Mike met us at the Office in the Bellingham RV Park and escorted us to the site. All went well.  Supper was at 5:15 (we are early eaters usually)  and we settled for Brats with all the trimmings.

Bellingham is a coastal town, (I neglected to remember that fact). I was stationed at Ft Lewis during the 1955-57 years and today when we passed it by,  O noticed that it is cmboned with McChord AFB as one unit.   This makes for quick deployment of troops when necessary  as wellas having a deep water port at Tacoma. When I-5 was completed it divided the Fort into two sections and one is now called "North Fort Lewis."  Bellingham has about 87,000 population and the hospital, the schools and Western Washington University are the argest employers.

Here are a few facts about Ft. Lewis.
" Fort Lewis began as Camp Lewis in 1917 when the citizens of Pierce County voted by an eight to one margin to bond themselves for $2 million to buy 68,721 acres (278 km²) of land. They donated the land to the federal government for military use. The only stipulation was that the tract be used as a permanent army post. (Remember this was during WW1) This is an amazing contribution.

 From 1942 to 1943, forty-two Japanese, German and Italian Americans were held at Fort Lewis as part of the government's "enemy alien" internment program during World War II. The Japanese and Italian internees were transferred to Fort Missoula and the Germans to Fort Lincoln, and the temporary detention facility closed on March 30, 1943". Gray Field at Ft.Lewis is the site used for Audie Murphy's parade at the end of "To Hell and Back" movie.

That's about it . We saw no birds of any consequence (7) but I did see a deer that Ruth missed.
The campground is a hilly one with many slopes , but we are level and good to go.  I'll put in a trailer photo tomorrow as maybe the rain will stop.

Here area a  few photos of the construction on I-405 and a hazy one of  Mt Rainier.