Grays Harbor Hostel
25 September 2011
I woke up early and left under the auspicious gaze of some wooden cows on the disc golf course. It was sunny, but the rain soon started, as the weather forecast had promised.
Jay had suggested shortcutting to South Bend by going over the mountains. This seemed desirable since I was equipped for climbing and wanted to spend as little time in the rain as possible. Past Montesano, I hit Hwy 101 for the first time.
The climbing started around here. The rain made the morning drag on and on. I stopped at Clark's restaurant for lunch. Then I noticed that it was only 10:30 in the morning. Damned if I was going to let that stop me from eating lunch though.
After lunch, the rain lightened up a bit and was no longer continuous. Now I was heading up and down hills, and the rain and the wind came in intervals. I passed a forest that had been leveled by gale-force winds a few years back, according to the signage. I could believe it…
Passing through Raymond, there are these cool sheet metal sculptures by the side of the road.
Ready to call it a day, I checked into the Seaquest Motel in South Bend. Actually, they told me the room wasn't quite ready yet, so I continued down the road to obtain a preview of the segment I would be covering tomorrow.
Of course, as luck would have it, not ten minutes after I had checked into the hotel, the clouds parted and the sun came out. I suppose I should have just been glad, since the weather forecast indicated that when I covered this road again the following day, I wouldn't be able to see any of it through the driving rain.
Upon returning to the Seaquest Motel I was pleasantly surprised. Despite being apparently the only motel in a tiny town, this place is astonishingly nice. It looked like it had been recently remodeled and the rooms were nicely furnished and super clean.
Almost all the restaurants had closed early on this Sunday evening (why on earth, I'll never know), but eventually I found a mediocre place that was opened and was serving fried seafood.
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