8/27/18 – Shelton to Centralia

59.8 Miles

1378 ft Climbed

You know my late start problem isn’t always my fault. The cheap motel I stayed in, last night, had already shut down their laundry facility when I arrived, so I had to wait for them to reopen it this morning at 9 AM to do my laundry. And then there was the problem of my dozing off while trying to catch up on two days of blogging. But that is all water under the bridge now. The fact is that I hit the road late again, so I felt pressure to keep moving to avoid arriving at the motel late. But once I got going, I kept finding reasons to stop.

The first stop of my day was in the town of Elma. The train monument in front of the post office is what caught my eye, initially, as my two year old grand baby, Lily, loves anything having to do with “choo choos”. When I stopped to take a photo, I noticed a couple of really cool monuments that told what the town is about–logging.

It is hard to see the detail in the bronze of a man. It corresponds to that statue in Blaine honoring the sacrifices of families of seamen, except this one honors the sacrifices of loggers–every day they do their jobs.

Moving down the road, the next town I came to was Porter, which, no doubt, is somehow in honor or memory of my friend Lloyd Porter. Even if it’s not, I thought of him as I passed the Porter bar which was next door to a cannabis shop.

It was at this point that I had to decided whether to take the winding ACA route, which potentially had a lot of needless hill climbing, like yesterday’s route did, or take a US highway that runs alongside a railroad track. Obviously, the route along the railroad won out. It passed through miles and miles of commercial tree farms and had spectacular views of the Chehalis River.

The town of Oakville claimed to be Timber Town USA, and I’m a believer. It had a couple of timber operations where a gazillion freshly cut logs were being processed.

I then passed trough the Chehalis Indian Reservation, with its very own casino. I had to stop to read the electronic billboard to see if I like any of the entertainers scheduled to perform there. I’m not into Randy Travis, but the “Fire Kitchen Buffet” caught my eye. But I was focused on the finish line, so I kept moving and staved off hunger with some chocolate chips and nuts from my feed bag.

My motel is next to an outlet mall, so I walked around the shops before grabbing dinner at Denny’s–my new favorite cheap restaurant.