7/23 - Mount Vernon to Camp Murray, Washington

Today's 106-mile drive from Mount Vernon to Camp Murray (between Tacoma and Olympia), plus set-up in the campground, took 3 1/2 very stressful hours.  Traffic was horrendous going in both directions which is apparently the norm for the Seattle metro area. It was sort of like being back in the DC area but at least there I usually know where I'm going.

Express lanes on I-5 go underneath the regular lanes. Traffic did move well there but the worst congestion was because of road construction after the express lanes ended.  The same express lanes are used for traffic going both north and south.  On Saturdays south-bound ends at 1:30 and northbound starts at 1:45. The express section appears to be about 16 miles long so there's only a 15-minute break to get everyone through that 16-mile section. Don't know how they make sure there aren't any slowpokes coming south before they let the northbound traffic start through. Maybe they have cameras monitoring the road.

We found our campground without difficulty, although the entry to Camp Murray is terribly tight for big RVs. Camp Murray is a Washington National Guard facility which is attached to Joint Base Lewis-McChord (formerly Fort Lewis and McChord AFB).  Our site in the campground was extremely difficult to get into which was really nerve-wracking. Adding to that, I had forgotten Goblin wasn't in his carrier so, when Jim left his door open while he got out to check on how to get into the site, Goblin got out.  Fortunately one of our neighbors saw him or we wouldn't have known it for a while and could have run over him. He went under the RV where Jim was able to grab him. Jim did a masterful job of getting us into the site after trying it from different angles, but it took a while and was not a what either of us needed after the drive.

Bumper-to-bumper traffic on the northbound side of I-5 at 3:30 pm on Saturday south of Camp Murray (we were going south). We thought weekends would be better than weekdays. Doesn't look like it....but we haven't seen weekdays yet!

Mid-afternoon we met Gabe at the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge about 8 miles south of our campground. It was an oasis of peace after the rattling day we'd had. The area was originally wetlands which were bought up in the 1800's. Dikes were built around them so they could be turned into farmland. After the farm became unprofitable in the 1960's, the land was put up for sale and a superport facility was proposed for the site.  Following a grassroots effort by many citizens to save the Nisqually Delta, the Fish and Wildlife Service purchased the farm with $1.75 million from the Migratory Bird Conservation Fund. The dikes were removed and the area was returned to wetlands.

We saw a few members of the wildlife community but, unfortunately, the otters Gabe saw on her last visit were not among them.

A muskrat having dinner........

One of several frogs hoping not to be dinner......

Our original plan for tomorrow was to spend the day in Seattle.  However, after our experience with the traffic today we decided we're going to Tacoma instead. There is nothing in Seattle which would be worth battling that traffic again.