Shelton, WA to Elma, WA - 36 miles
We left Potlatch State Park this morning and made at stop for groceries around noon. By time we circled back out of the town to our route, the main road was blocked by every fire engine in the county. We got to see a small town fire department take on a major forest fire.
Today was warmer than the past week, so we downed more water. When we were still a handful of miles from a town, we realized that 7 of our 8 water bottles were empty or nearly so. We could have made it to town (and we do have other options for carrying more water), but we decided to stop at the nearest business to refill.
I'd like to give a shout out to the accommodating gentlemen of Castle & Coleman Logging and Coleman Christmas Trees for their generous gifts of ice and water. When we asked if we could refill our bottles, they immediately dug into an ice chest for arctic cold water bottles we could drink right then, then directed us to their ice maker and faucet in the barn-turned-trophy-room. If any hunting enthusiasts are reading this, you may want to find yourself short on water somewhere southwest of Shelton, WA. The trophy room is quite impressive.
The gifts continued today when we saw a sign outside someone's gate advertising farm-fresh eggs. As former chicken farmer's ourselves, we rarely pass-up such an offer. The owner told us to come get some corn from her garden as well, and we ended up leaving with corn, tomatoes, swiss chard and some unidentified squash. We ended the day pulling more weight in food than we typically like to, but we'll never complain about a windfall of fresh produce.
