Off to a slow start

Nicole called us on Skype first thing this morning.  She hadn't been able to sleep yet and looked worn out, but seemed a bit perkier by the time we hung up.  A short time later, another call came in on Skype.  I thought is must be Nicole calling back, but much to my surprise, it was an old friend from Florida.

While he and I were catching up a bit, Nancy started rearranging things.  One thing led to another and before I knew it she was repacking the whole RV.  This took most of the morning and we didn't leave the RV park and return the rental car until after 11:00.  We then did a little shopping at Bed Bath and Beyond and got Sadie's nails trimmed at PetSmart.

Our travel plan for today was to drive to Hammond, Oregon at the mouth of the Columbia River, a distance of just over 100 miles.  The quickest way to do that is by going north up I-205/ I-5 on the Washington side as far as Longview then crossing to the Oregon side for the second half of the trip.

At this point, we were within a mile of the nearest I-205 on ramp, and I was itching to be on our way, but Nancy had decided that she wanted a camera like Nicole's.  We should have just looked for one right where we were, but old habits die hard, and the lure of saving on the sales tax by going to the Jantzen Beach Best Buy proved impossible to resist.  After all, the Jantzen mall was right at the Oregon end of the I-5 bridge.  It wasn't much of a detour, and once we had the camera, we could be  back on the Interstate headed for Longview in a matter of minutes.

A great plan, but not today.  As we reached the south end of the bridge, we noticed that an accident in the north bound lanes had traffic at a standstill.  Our visit to Best Buy proved to be brief as nothing caught our fancy, so we decided to get some lunch at the food court and give the traffic a little more time to clear up.

At first glance, it looked like our only choices were Taco Bell, China Wok, or a place selling Indian food.  Fortunately, there was also an expresso stand that had hot dogs and Polish sausages.  We opted for a couple of sausages.

When the old amusement park closed, the 1905 merry-go-round was saved and moved to a place of honor in the new mall.  Happily, despite all the financial ups and downs since then, it still sits beside the food court, and still goes round and round to the delight of yet another generation of little people.

We returned to the RV to find traffic was still a mess.  Like most people, getting stuck in traffic makes me crazy, so I decided the answer was to go south on I-5 then take Marine Drive across town to I-205.  Though it took me miles out of my way and almost certainly took much longer, at least I was moving, and that was good enough.

Because of the delay, we did not reach the campground at Fort Stevens State Park until 4:00.  There was no one at the ranger station, and we had to figured out how to check ourselves in.  By the time we got hooked up it was almost dark.

One of Nicole's friends in Anchorage recently set herself the goal of taking at least one picture everyday.  I liked the idea when I heard about it, and yesterday I decided to start doing it, too.  I ran outside just as the sun was setting and grabbed a few shots.  This was the best.

Today, we were so busy, I completely forgot about my camera and it never left my bag.

Day 76
Vancouver, WA to Hammond, OR

Daily Mileage:  127.4
Total Mileage:  12,296.9