#3: [15-Jul-24]

#2: [03-Jan-05]

30-Oct-1999 -- I was feeling pretty guilty about hitting such an easy confluence. But, what the heck: the last one was no cake-walk.

From my stop at the Olympia confluence, I drove further west on WA-8 and headded west towards Hoquiam. I'd been through Aberdeen, which neighbors Hoquiam, many times. I like to ride my motorcycle around the Penninsula. Unfortunately, I never had time to do it this year.

Hoquiam is a tiny little town run mostly for the logging industry. It's less depressed, and certainly less remote, than other similar cities (like Forks) out on the Penninsula. That's probably also because it's home to one of the bigger ports outside of the Puget Sound.

Anyway, I fell off of WA-8 and connected to WA-101. I bought some more batteries for my GPS, since the ones in there were getting low. And I continued on WA-109 towards the shore and Ocean City.

I passed Hoquiam High School. Grizzly Fever: there is no cure.

Sure enough, I came around the corner and found myself passing some of the roads that would lead towards the confluence. Across the street from the property where the confluence is a little shop that sells wood sculptures. I parked there and walked south on WA-109 towards the spot where the confluence should be.

The land use markings on the topographic map I had were a bit confusing; I thought the spot would be in a refuge and not on private property. But, sure enough, my GPS and well-honed dead-recoking indicated the confluence was right on the Enquist residence.

I walked along the north edge of the property, marked by a wire fence, first. You can see my GPS at the base of a fence post in Photo #1. (The fence appears bowed because I again used my super-wide 15mm lens.) That's looking south towards the confluence. My GPS is shown in Photo #2, reading 47 degrees and 0.023 minutes north by 124 degrees and 0.002 minutes west. I was about 140 feet north of my mark!

Back along the main road, I found the entrance to the property. Here, my GPS read 47 degrees and 0.002 minutes north by 124 degrees and 0.033 minutes west. I popped picture #3 at the entrance. The white sign says "We support the timber industry".

I built the courage to walk up the driveway to see if someone was home and if I could have permission to walk around the pen in front of the house that held the confluence. But there was a sign warning of dogs (right on the second tree in the driveway in photo #3). As if on cue, they started barking. So, I bailed: 130-something feet away is surely close enough.

On the way back home, I stopped in Hoquiam at Steves Parkway Tavern. I parked my fancy imported sports car in the lot between two hard-worked pickup trucks and went in. The Washington State football game was on; they were playing Stanford. The median age of the dozen-or-so patrons had to be around 40.

I looked around as I sucked a Rainer and watched the game. 'Course, I couldn't order an Amstel here unless I wanted to get my import-drivin' ass kicked back to King County. It was a really rustic place, full of people who did real work for a living. There was little doubt they would not have much use for a keyboard pettin' weak-stick like me.

Some guy came in and nearly fell over. When he got up, he flexed his muscles and yelled: "It's time for the party to start!" He was no younger than 45, and his purple U-Dub jacket looked like it had never been washed.

I downed another beer and headed home; it was almost 3pm.