Stage 8 Where are we?

This is the part of the race where things start to meld together. You start forgetting where you started, what you saw, and even what you had for lunch. Fortunately, with the help of a few pictures I vaguely remember the day.

We started the morning in Vancouver and had a full morning of rallying. We were traversing back and forth across the Columbia River. The river was pretty and different in that we were at lower elevations, so the trees were a little different. There must be a million cottonwood trees because the air is thick with white seeds.

We had a brief “coffee break” in Astoria. Brad and I stopped for gas and Brad spotted a smoked salmon shop next to the gas station. While Brad was filling the car, I ran next store and picked up some smoked salmon. It was the second best smoked salmon we have ever had. The first is Kokonee Salmon that we had with our friends Sue and Mike in Montana, but this was a close second. They marinated the fish in wine and maple and then smoked it. It was quite the mid morning snack. We quickly stopped at the morning break and then continued on down the river.

We drove toward Longview, Washington and enjoyed more of the road side beauty. The Foxgloves have been everywhere bright pink and full of blossoms. The other plant that grows like weeds is blackberries.

The blackberry bushes really impressed us, mostly because we have had little success growing them ourselves.

The morning part of rallying ended in Longview, where we were greeted by a huge car show. The locals had lined up 3 or 4 city blocks full of classic and collectible cars. We were offered lunch by a local restaurant, but our salmon snack had filled us up and we had directions to go over before the second half of the day.

After lunch we headed toward Spanaway, Washington to the LeMays private collection. We pulled into a driveway and looked out on a big lawn with manicured bushes and trees lining the driveway. The driveway was long, and we drove down it and then parked on the lawn.

We were told the LeMays have the largest car collection in the country. Along with the cars they have collected a plethora of other items. They are a local family that has a refuse company and have collected for many years. They had over 3000 cars in their collection, and have given part of the collection to a museum.

I don’t remember if I mentioned it earlier this week, but we were lucky enough to be sponsored by Reliable Carriers this week. Mike and Cindy have been with Reliable Carriers for as long as we have done the Great Race, and most likely longer. Mike and Cindy drive the sweeper truck, so they do the entire route with us. They also load all the cars that are being shipped home, and make sure they end up at the right place.

Today was super long, especially after lunch, but there were only two check points. We were not allowed to throw out any scores today. We lucked out and had a great day. We ended up having one of our best days with a total score of 8. We even had an Ace. We decided we are just going to enjoy tomorrow, so we did not look at the standings. You are welcome to check at http://www.greatrace,com and look at the rally details and scores. We just decided this is a race that is not over until we are finished and no reason to look.

We are looking forward to Jane running well tomorrow, and enjoying the Tacoma area as we rally for the last day to complete the Great Race 2019.

More to come tomorrow.

In the words of Bartles and James, “Thank you, for your support!”