Long Time Gone: Day 7 -- to Seattle

My Sweet Baby Nat,

Surprisingly, I slept well last night … despite the party a few campsites away that raged into the wee hours and the car alarm that sounded off at 12:30 a.m., ten feet from our trailer.

All was quiet when I woke up this morning, and I experienced the peace that I had been seeking. When the kids woke up, we packed up a basket of peanut butter, bagels and hard boiled eggs and strolled to the beach for a picnic breakfast.

Our breakfast view. Could be worse.

We had the car packed up and were pulling out of the campground by 9 a.m. It was a white-knuckle drive for the first 60-minutes or so, as I fretted about every creak and rattle resounding from the hitch, certain that the tires had blown and we were dragging the trailer around on its rims. But every nervous glance in the rear view mirror revealed that the Teardrop was still there and was rolling along just as smoothly as it should. After a while, the road evened out, the noises subsided and I was able to assure myself that we’d make it at least to Seattle.

Dad called our friend Robbie Hancock this morning. Remember Mr. Hancock? He owns the muffler and brake shop next to McGuire Music in Lafayette. Dad asked for his advice about the tires, and even texted him a photo of the treads. Robbie suggested that we try to get the tires replaced very soon — like, in Seattle — and assured us that we would be able to make it that far. I am very grateful to Robbie for taking time out of his Sunday morning to weigh in on this. His counsel takes the edge off my worry. We’ll get this figured out.

From the campground, we drove north along the Oregon Coast until we got to Astoria, in the extreme northwest corner of the state — famous for being, among other things, the spot where “The Goonies” was filmed We stopped in town at the former county jail, which was featured briefly in the movie and is now the Oregon Film Museum — a mish-mash of a homegrown attraction that highlights movies filmed in the state — including “Kindergarten Cop,” “Free Willy” and everybody’s favorite blockbuster: “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III.” Enough said.

From Astoria, we drove north and entered the state of Washington!

As you know, on our quest to visit all 50 states, we’ve had to put an asterisk next to the state of Washington since 2009. Technically, we’ve already visited Washington: We clipped the far southeastern corner of the state in about 45 minutes one afternoon, as we drove from Idaho to Oregon. We saw nothing but onion fields. Since then I have felt that we have to actually see Washington — see the essence of the state — like, mountains and coastline — in order to count it.

Today, we removed that asterisk!

We drove north along the coast for a stretch, before turning inland toward Olympia and Tacoma. For lunch, we pulled off the scenic Highway 101 and followed signs for a county park about three miles off the road, and a million miles from nowhere, where we found a grassy spot on a small bluff overlooking a seaweed-covered beach and made turkey sandwiches from the back of the trailer.

End-of-the-road lunch spot. Could be worse.

The drive into Seattle seemed to take forever. Stop-and-go traffic between Olympia and Tacoma was especially frustrating. But at one point we rounded a bend a saw Mount Rainier shimmering like a mirage in the distance, which made it all worth it!

I had made reservations at the Seattle-Tacoma KOA, but only so we could have a place to park the Teardrop while we go into the city for a couple of nights. So we found our kampsite — essentially a parking space with a thin sliver of grass crammed between two enormous RVS, and Dad and the kids took quick showers, then they rented three-wheeled bikes and rode around the grounds while I kamped out in the laundry room and washed all of our clothes.

It’s hot here. The temperature gauge in the car reads about 90. This must be extraordinary for Seattle. The folks at the KOA were griping about the heat, and the power at the kampground kept shutting down because kampers were overloading the circuits as they attempted to cool their giant RVs. Anyway, we left the trailer in the middle of that stifling parking lot and continued on to downtown Seattle.

We’re staying at Hotel Ändra, a Scandinavian-Inspired hotel in the Belltown neighborhood that’s all blonde wood and Nordic design. Conidentally, it was highlighted in the "36 Hours" column in the July 5 NYT. My first impression of Seattle is that its surprisingly hilly. Before our trip, I studied books and maps and, in my mind, pinned points of interest in the city. But the city in 3D is not at all what I expected, and I’m a little disoriented.

I will sleep well tonight.

We enjoyed a fabulous dinner of Mediterranean tapas at Lola restaurant, which is next door to our hotel, the we sent the kids off to bed while Dad and I sat in the lobby and read and caught up on the blog, respectively.