That's the ticket!

Earth date: 2014, July 17th
Location: Across Washington


We made up for the short drive from Seattle to Anacortes by making a 437 mile trip to Pullman, Washington. This would have been a significant detour as our next major stop was Glacier National Park, however we were picking up Morgan Kelley -- a fourth passenger on our trip. As it turned out, we would have had to make a similar detour even if we were not picking up Morgan, as massive wildfires had spread through central Washington.

Avoiding the fires

We stopped (briefly) in Ellensburg to fill up the prius, and while doing so Amanda came across a rather pathetic and hungry-looking horse. We gave it water and some of the spare fruit we had lying around before continuing on our way.

We picked Morgan up in Richland, where he has been working over the summer. It was quite a change from the rather cool Seattle and Anacortes: the temperatures in Richland were a little over 100 F (37 C).

Other than the annoyingly hot temperatures, we had another issue to deal with: space! With a fourth passenger, and an already bursting prius, space was at a premium. We had attempted to deal with U-Haul to get a hitch attached to the back of our car, and then rent a trailer but this had failed. A tip for everyone else out there: if U-Haul make appointments and say they have things in stock don't believe them! Instead we got ourselves a "roof bag" that we strapped onto our prius:

Prius with a 'fro

We packed up in the REI parking lot, and then made our way over to Morgan's apartment in Pullman. We got to see the campus of Washington State University, and the most important football stadium of all time (go cougars!)

WSU Football stadium recognizing the many important contribution of the Martin's to gridiron

Today was also the day we learned about Eastern Washington's speed traps. Sadly we got a ticket as we went through Colfax (a small town just before Pullman). It made the mood a little dour for a couple of hours, but by the time we were packed into the apartment the mood had improved greatly.