Our Mini Trip Con't

So here we are at a rest stop about half way down from Port Angeles to Olympia. The highway travels alongside Hood Canal where crabbing is a big way of life at all the little communities along the way. You can see the crabbing pier going out into the canal that separates the mainland from what appears to be an island you see from Seattle, looking westward.Although it looks like an island, it really is a long irregular pennisula that connects to the mainland at Shelton, a city north of Olympia. The Canal curls around the base of the pennisula where a body of land five miles wide, keeps that piece of pennisula from being an island. (Click on the map at the link above to make it larger. )
The drive was an eyeopener to another way of life...one of fishing, crabbing and oyster farming. We stopped at a roadside cafe and settled for fresh shrimp and fries and a delicious Oyster burger...Yum! That got us started on fresh Oysters for the remainder of the trip!
We skirted around Olympia in a blink of the eye and took the I-5 south to Longview and then westward over to Astoria. The bridge photos are of the amazingly long bridge and causeway that crosses the Columbia river at Astoria, and also serves as the division between Oregon and Washington State. We crossed that mighty Columbia,so many times on our journey, that the styles of bridges became more and more fascinating -almost as much as where the next bridge might actually be located! The river is so wide that any bridge is an engineering feat,as all must be high enough to allow freighters and ships to pass beneath them.
On my map, it shows the bridge at Astoria to be 4 miles long. It felt like it when you came to the crest of the bridge and could see the long stretch of causeway joining the main structure to the other side of the river... Not to mention, it was a beast to cross on the snowy morning of our return! I'll have to continue the saga tomorrow when I am awake.
have a great week-end...Remember...it is Hockey Day in Canada and all of the focus will be on Nelson! Tune into CBC all day tomorrow for coverage of the big event.
"The Creator"