Today, we packed up our site under cloudy skies. Many people have stopped and asked us how we manage to fit everything in our little Miata. Short answer “Very carefully.” We then elaborate. It would be impossible without the trunk rack for tent and clothes bag as well as limiting clothes and gear. Why camp in such a little car? Simple: it’s fun to drive around back curvy roads like today along Highway 101 on the Pacific coast.

Since we need to catch up on laundry, correspondence and blog, we made it a shorter travel day. Olympic Peninsula was wonderful, but it had very limited cell and internet access. Although traveling Hwy 101 along the Pacific Coast is wonderful, finding lodging on a Friday night in August is challenging. We finally found a Best Western that met our needs: warm bed, laundry facilities, phone and internet service. We have an ocean front room, but the sky is overcast so not much of a sunset.

farm country

The scenery continues to change

and change

Tomorrow, we will be heading south on US 101 and will probably stop somewhere just south of the California border. I have always wanted to drive US 101 from end to end. It is a fascinating road that actually begins in Olympia, WA, goes north to Port Angeles, WA, then west to the Pacific Ocean and follows the ocean coast all the way to San Francisco. There it goes inland and CA 1 follows the coast from San Francisco to LA. (We will be taking CA 1 from San Francisco to LA as I have driven down that part of US 101 many times.) US 101 used to go all the way to the US/Mexico border at Tijuana, Mexico, now it ends in LA as it was replaced with I5.