Had enough stuff down here to take to the condo so loaded up the van and headed North after coffee and post office. Needed to stop at Hardware Sales so that made for an afternoon. Drove South on I-5 and took the HWY 20 exit to drive into Burlington to get some stuff from the welding store. Took the back roads and traffic was really bad - slow. This was around 2:00PM or so.
Turns out, getting off I-5 was a smart move - from Seattle's KOMO News:
6 hurt in massive 23-vehicle pileup near Mt. Vernon
A massive Saturday morning pileup involving nearly two dozen vehicles injured several people and clogged traffic on I-5 near Mount Vernon.
The crash happened near northbound exit 224, just south of the scene of the fatal shooting that occurred earlier Saturday morning.
Trooper Mark Francis with the Washington State Patrol said 23 vehicles -- including a semi-truck -- were involved in the crash. The investigation is in its early stages, but it appears a semi carrying 80,000 pounds of gravel was heading southbound when it crossed the median and started the pileup.
Bobby Grace and Peter Franssen were sitting in traffic when they saw a semi heading "way too fast" in the southbound lane.
"It was bumper to bumper traffic, and then all the sudden it was like the semi just flew over the whole median and there was dirt everywhere," Grace said. "So much dirt, it was like a sand storm. It was astonishing. I can't believe it happened."
More at the site - glad I got off the freeway when I did. Anyway, to get back on to I-5 I had to go over an overpass and I saw that traffic was flowing freely in both directions so I got on and drove down a couple of exits to Mt. Vernon and got onto Beaver Marsh Road. I was there at the same time as last Thursday when I saw all the Snow Geese but where there were several hundred birds all flying around, there were only about 20 already settled in for the evening. The light was incredible but there were so few birds, I did not even stop to take a still photo.
Stopped at the library to return a book and request a couple more (reading the Nathaniel Drinkwater series) and now home. Heading out for dinner in a few moments.
Nature did throw me a bone - when I went outside into the back yard, there was the cutest family of three otters playing about 15 feet off the shoreline. They were looking at me and the dogs but went back to getting dinner - there is a fairly large shellfish bed off my back porch. Going to have to keep one of my cameras by the back door for such events.
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