Made It

We successfully made it to Puyallup last night... at midnight...

We got to the exit for White Pass at mile post 68 and decided that we would wait for the road to re-open. We heard that there would be a pilot car taking people back and forth. We stopped at a restaurant and went in for some food about 9pm. There were signs up for people to take shelter at a nearby school but we thought we would just wait awhile. From where we were parked, we watched many people turn around and get back on the highway to go back south, there were people talking to the cop that guarded the north bound entrance to the highway who was telling people to either stick it out or turn around, and there were many trucks just sitting there waiting.

Between the soup/salad and our main meals a couple came up to us and asked us if we were stranded and needed to get north - low and behold they were the ones with the pilot car (which was unmarked) helping people get around I-5! Apparently, they had been helping people get around since 7pm, even though the news and all radio reports had the way blocked with no detour in place.

Jesse and I got our dinners to go and followed the pilot car east of the highway to high and dry land. We didn't actually see any bad water issues until we got back into Centralia. What a mess! Jesse and I are both from Dayton, WA which had a major 100 year flood in the mid 90s. We hadn't seen bad flooding, with our own eyes, like they have over here since then. Hotels with water more than half way up the doors, a semi truck that had water up to its doors, homes abandoned for 5 feet of water, washed out roads, and businesses and restaurants obviously not open for business any time soon.

We wrote down the detour directions in case we need to use them on the way back!

So, all in all I am glad we made the trek! Carol Edmund's dog Ace was WD/BOS today and Mirage with Mike was BW/BOW and Emily Fish's Secret was BOB. Hunter went Reserve.

See more of you tomorrow maybe???