Day 59, Aug. 14 (Thurs) La Wis Wis Campground to Lewis and Clark S.P., WA

Got up, packed, and opted to head about 8 miles down to Packwood for breakfast. We managed to escape the campground without talking to the campground host, who was very nice, but definitely a longwinded fellow. We made our way up that steep hill, and then rolled up and down to Packwood, stopping for various fixes, like tissues (toilet paper), flying straps, and bent fenders.

As we rolled down into Packwood, we noticed about 5 statues of elk in someone's yard, like many we had seen before, only these didn't look like the paint job was chipping off. Then we realized that they were real. There were all in all about 7, pretty young, male and female elk roaming this church ground, mowing their lawn for them one bite at a time. We stared at them and they stared back. The people driving by seemed pretty unimpressed. Once we realized they weren't going anyway and it would be awkward to stand there all day, we scurried down to Peter's Inn for breakfast where we dined on a fresh cinnamon roll, omelette, and the Hungry Man Grumble (which I couldn't finish- a first!). There we met a few nice folks, 2 guys from New Paltz and Long Island who were in the process of training to hike Mt. Rainier and a nice wobbly older fellow with a great white beard who gave us very slow cooked advice and told us about Willie Keil's grave (who apparently died on the Oregon Trail, but was pickled in alcohol and carried all the way west).

After some brief digestion we set out. We both had pretty clear heads and our intention was set on getting where we needed to go. The riding was pretty pleasant, and we made it about 25 miles until we stopped for some grocery store grub at Morton and ate outside in their "garden" section, which consisted of us, a potted plant, and a very poor sculpture. Some man came by and sort of yelled at us for not being careful up the road, but we weren't really sure how we were being uncareful (the shoulders are nice and big here) and how his yelling was helping anything.

We thought we should get a few more miles out of us before we stopped into a library, so we headed up to Mossyrock, up the strangest hill we have been on. It tore us to pieces, it had an extra lane for the slow uphill traffic, and the truckers had trouble too, but when you looked at it the incline looked like nothing. Go figure.

After we had huffed and puffed our way to Mossyrock, we discovered there was no library there, so we went another 10 miles to Sulkam, getting a few glimpses of the top, or lack of top, of Mt. Saint Helens.

The library there was swell. We took caught up a bit on the internet, bought 2 books for 10 cents a piece, and talked to Sherri the librarian who used to be a body builder. To look at her, you would never had expected that in a previous life, she was a body builder. She was the most petite, quintessential librarian you have ever met, and her voice never raised above that 6 in voice.

After we'd been there a good 2.5 hrs, we set off for the last 10 miles or so, in search of a little grocery to supply us with some eats for dinner.

Of course next to Ethel's market, a few miles up the road, was this tiny trailer restaurant called Kelley's Kountry Kafe, which after perusing the grocery store, appealed to us no end. Entering, the full house of 20 or so people turned to look at us, and we found the one empty table back in the corner. The center table of 8 people was celebrating one of the fellow's birthday and they kindly offered us some of their delicious homemade cake, wild blackberry cobbler, and ice cream. We gladly accepted this desert first idea. It was the kind of place where everyone talks at each other across the restaurant, and we had a mighty fine time chatting with everyone. We even discovered that the man's bday was actually the same as mine, which was cute or something.

After we overstayed there and the party broke up, we headed up our last big hill and down to Lewis and Clark S.P. (they really like these guys here). We set up camp among this very old growth forest, delved into our books, and took hot showers. Unfortunately when we were trying to hang our food from a tree, we ended up break 2 dead branches and 1 very much alive branch and we felt quite sad in our hearts. Instead we ended up hanging it in the "out of order" stall in the bathroom. We settled into our tent after catching a glimpse of the almost full moon and went to bed under our more than amazing tree canopy.