Shelton to Grayland

Sunday May 12th 2013

From Shelton to Grayland we started on the 101 again but turned off onto some quieter roads to head towards Aberdeen. Unlike last time I made a concerted effort not to pass through Aberdeen which is very bike unfriendly.

These back roads were even more scenic than the 101 with some truely amazing views.

Somewhere east of Aberdeen WA

The weather turned bad in Cosmopolis and we had light to moderate rain for the last 20 miles of the trip so we were both soaked when we got to Grayland. Although I like this area of WA there are no motel chains here so it's always a gamble when you book a motel room.

We stayed at the Walsh Motel in Grayland. Big mistake for several reasons. First, this is a grotty motel. There are rooms near the road and more rooms a quarter mile down a driveway. Our room was down the driveway. The rooms are poorly constructed with amateurish workmanship. The only redeeming feature of the room was a fireplace with a bundle of firewood.

There was a washing machine - heavily corroded - but the dryer was broken. I had to ride back up to the main office in heavy rain to get laundry detergent and quarters for the washer. While I was there I rode next door to a poorly stocked and expensive grocery store to get some food for the night.

We showered and changed into dry clothes then dumped all our wet gear into the washing machine. While it was running we cooked up the groceries (bacon and eggs, they were out of bread!). Then we set up chairs in front of the heater vents and draped our laundry in front of them. We put our soaked shoes inside the fireplace and lit a fire. If that hadn't worked I would have microwaved them.

Drying shoes inside the fireplace

By careful monitoring we managed to get everything dried by the morning.