Today we started out in the pouring rain from our motel in Aberdeen. The road wound out of town and towards Raymond with a wide shoulder and very little traffic, both of which we enjoyed! The rain was relentless and we saw many logged areas, along with signs telling us about how trees had blown down in 120mph winds.
The miles flew by and soon we came into Raymond. We stopped at a cafe downtown and Adam had two huge pancakes, ham and eggs and I had cottage cheese, peaches and salad (all proved to be soy-free). It was a really neat spot and we enjoyed drying out there. Raymond had a lot of strange metal sculpture spread through town. It also had a bike path out of town, which we followed. We got the feeling that Raymond was really trying to beautify and attract tourists.
From Raymond, we followed 101 down the coast to Ilewaco. The road was gorgeous, right along the coast but the weather was unpredictable, alternating rain, hail, clouds and sun all the way down. We continued to be soaked.
After getting supplies in Ilewaco, we headed out to Deception Pass State Park. We passed a viewpoint of the huge waves crashing into the coast. At the campground, we had a hard time figuring out where the campsites were as the sun was setting. Finally, we found a site next to an empty yurt (yurts have covered porches to eat under). As we got set up, the camp host came over. She nicely informed us that we were not in the cheap hiker-biker area (which was underwater, and of course, the hiker-biker sites were a very long walk to showers and water…). The next day the camp office people only charged us the hiker/biker rate right away since we did bike in and the campground was empty – since the whole point is that it is meant for people who reduced their impact on the environment and the sites are always available even when the rest of the campground is full. The host lady also warned us that they have vicious raccoons that will try to eat our food. We wanted to stay in the yurt but we were too late since the office was closed. She did, thankfully, have lots of quarters for the showers, for which we were grateful.
The rain stopped temporarily and I cooked dinner and Adam set things up. As soon as I finished cooking, it started raining. Then I figured out that I had bought bacon with “flavorings” that were soy-based and didn’t get to finish my dinner. I did get some of hot pears for dessert, though. We went to bed listening to the rain and wind pound the tent and the waves wash in.
As we were about to fall asleep, I noticed the shadow of our food bags reflected on our tent from the light of the yurt porch. It was swaying. Could it have been that windy?? Then we saw a shadow of what looked like a raccoon trying to get into it! Adam looked out the tent with the flashlight and sure enough it was a raccoon trying everything to get to our food bags that were treed. It tried to cut the rope with its teeth (since when did they get that smart??), tried to move the bag from the branch closer to the tree by tugging on the rope, and then as a final resort tried to stretch as tall as it could from the ground to reach it (he was thankfully a good couple feet too short, but he was close to getting a loose piece of Adam’s cooler bag). It was a very entertaining 5 to 10 minutes, but eventually the raccoon gave up and we were able to fall asleep peacefully!
Trip Around The World 
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