Road Trip - Eugene - Coupeville, WA 04-21-13

I have arrived in Coupeville, WA, on Whidby Island.   I didn't keep track of the driving time, but the mileage was 1377 miles - almost all of it on I-5.  I did have to get off to get gas, food, ladies rooms, and motels.  Today started about 8:30am and ended around 5pm, but that included some waiting time for the ferry and the 20 minute ferry ride followed by 45minutes driving north on the island to Coupeville.   Class setup tomorrow starts at 8:30am, so I HAVE to go to bed.  Here are a few pictures taken today.


Trees, wonderful trees, they raise my spirits and comfort me.  The dark trees in the background are Douglas Firs - so tall, so shaggy, so much a part of "home" after a childhood in Oregon.   I took this image as I was leaving the motel parking lot in Eugene.
 

Right down the street I almost stopped right in the roadway when I saw these gorgeous blue rhododendrons as part of Carl's Jr.'s landscape.  They have been "invented" since I was a child and I always find them startling.  The white rhodies in the back ground really set them off, as do the yellow pansies right next to the walk.
.

 

It doesn't seem like a color Nature would invent  - just gorgeous.
 .

For years California farmers along I-5 have hung signs on the fences identifying what is growing in the fields and orchards - rice, peaches, almonds, etc..  But this is the first time I have noticed them in other states. 

"Perennial Ryegrass"

I cannot read the sign in the image, but this must be rapeseed.
 

Here is the sign where I am staying in my own little cottage (I'll take pictures).  Several people have told me to go over to the mainland to see the flowers fields which they claim are in full flower.

The cottage on the left is "Beachcomber Cottage II" - my own little "hideaway. 

There was a lot of this today, big baggy grey/black clouds.  There was rain periodically, but the automatic wipers just start and stop as needed, so I don't even know how many periods of rain there were.  Maybe 10, but none very heavy.