A state and a half in one day.

Day 1 started at 6 am! But here we are in Salem, Oregon in the Grand Hotel ( 445 km). After catching the 10:30 Coho and giving up our home grown apples to save the USA from Metchosin apple blight we headed south to Oregon. Awesome weather. It is getting hotter the further south we go. So much for the extra sweaters I packed. We checked in and then walked about the historical district of Salem this evening. For those history buffs, Salem was founded in 1841 by Jason Lee, a Methodist missionary. We ate dinner at the Reed Opera House (1870) at La Perla Tapatia - Mexican. Norman even found POSTCARDS in the window of an antique mall (opens tomorrow at 9:30am).  Tomorrow California!! (after the antique mall). Mary
On the road with Normy: You see the strangest things along the highway. Like the signs along Washington state roads warning you not to throw stuff out the window. "Litter and it will hurt." I wonder what punishment they perform? Maybe twist the wrist that flipped the butt into the slipstream? Then there was "yappy hour" at the Working Girl Winery east of Port Angeles. Guess what? A fundraiser for the humane society.  Don't Drug and Drive was another memorable official highway sign.
They're voting soon down here, and they elect everybody, it seems -- state representative, county treasurer, U.S. senator, director of community development for Clallam Co. I liked Deb Kelly's poster for prosecutor: "Always Faithful." There was one "Elect Nobody" sign at Bremerton too. Maybe he's foreign born. More signs on the byways of Washington: Kitchen-Dick Road, very close to Chicken Coop Road, near Jimmycomelately Creek. Best road sign: End Shoulder Driving. Might try that on the way back.  (That sign followed Slow Vehicles May Use Shoulder.) Best law in Washington: Delay of Five Vehicles Must Use Turnout. Maybe the slow ones can use their shoulders on the steering wheel. Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers. Saw that one just once, near the Washington Women's Correctional Facility.
Best Weird Sight: Big rocks poised on top of tall stumps in a clearcut by the highway on the Olympic Peninsula. Really big ones. We saw three of them. Very sculptural. Bremerton also has the Elandan Gardens, which consists of stumps piled artistically beside Highway 16. Best Town Name (though we didn't actually pass through it): Yelm.  And I liked the Nalley Valley, a strange little neighbourhood on the outskirts of Tacoma with freeway ramps and warehouses, soon to have a bigger and better freeway interchange.