Day 17 of this trip started like many before it.  We ate some hot breakfast before packing the Chariot for travel today.  It was raining cats and dogs so we packed up quick.

Lost

This is when things start to get interesting.  Our morning should have been a short 30min drive from Seaside Oregon, across the Columbia River, and on to McGowan Washington.

With it raining, and being in unfamiliar territory, we made a wrong turn.  Not really paying attention to where we were, it was another 25min before we realized we're going the wrong way...

There is never a wrong way, just another story in our adventure!  Being stubborn and refusing to backtrack, we followed this new "shortcut".

We were able to turn a boring 30min drive into a 4hr adventure.  I know it says just under 3hrs but we get sidetracked looking at stuff. 

Once we made it to Rainier we came to the first bridge to cross over to Washington.  And an impressive bridge it was!  Here you can see it off in the distance.  It's huge!

Washington State

About half way across the bridge you'll see the Entering Washington State sign.  The sun was trying to poke it's head out but the cloud ceiling didn't allow for much of a view.

Finally we were back on 101 PCH and the Oceans Coastline.  We headed North in hopes of a nice drive through Olympic National Park.  

The City of Aberdeen is where we made the final decision to skip that drive and start heading towards Seattle.  We were meeting up with a friend and didn't want to roll into town too late.

Driving up through Tacoma, the rain was still on and off.  Off in the distance was a familiar site.  It was the Space Needle!  You can see it here on the left side of the picture.

The sun came out as we made our way through downtown Seattle.  We didn't stop in the City for any of the tourist traps.  

North of Seattle we found ourselves in a beautiful little harbor town.  This was our meeting spot for the night.  I'm not going to Dox her on here without permission. 

We didn't really get anymore pictures of this part of the trip.  It was a great visit with our friend and she gave us some spots to stop on our trip!  We really want to make a return trip just to see the Olympic National Park.

Here is our route for the day.  It says almost 7hrs but it was closer to 9.5hrs for us.

Keep an eye out for Day 18 where we start making our way back across the top of the country.

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