Cumulative distance: 2501 km
Maximum speed: 125 kph
Moving average: 71 kph
Overall average: 56 kph
Moving time: 4:17
Total time: 5:24
Temperature range: 17.2 -32.4
Forest fires are raging in Washington state right now, and the situation is tragic for many.
We didn't even realize the gravity of the sitution until this morning at breakfast. We were settling plans to have lunch with some friends of ours who were going to drive down from Abbotsford and meet us in Sedro-Wooley when we noticed the front page of the local newspaper indicating the fire locations. There are two bad fires along Highway 20, our planned route east. There is a stretch of 50 miles where towns are without power and Winthrop, a popular tourist destination, is under mandatory evacuation.
This is a big disappoointment to us because Highway 20 was meant to be one of the highlights of our trip. We have to determine how we are going to get home so our choices are to drive north, cross the border back into Canada and drive east along Highway 3 or drive south, maybe even into the southern part of the state, to get across. One route, Highway 2, is also affected by the fires but it is not clear to us if it is open or closed. There is the I-90 further south still but we don't want to travel on an interstate highway, then there is Highway 12 all the way at the bottom of the state. We have heard that Highway 12 is a good motorcycle road; also, since we have driven Highway 3 in Canada and because a big reason for travel is to experince new places, we decide we will head south then east, even though it sadly means we are ditching our friends from Abbotsford.
We are heading out from Anacortes and it is 11:30 a.m., not even entirely certain which way we going to go. I have the Garmin set to avoid motorways and gravel but to direct us to Kennewick, with no real intent of going there.
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