Chuckanut Drive

Funny name, at least that’s what I thought the first time I heard of this scenic drive. I got this recommendation from a colleague to take this slower pace route via Chuckanut Drive rather than the Interstate 5 from Seattle to Bellingham. The highway was built in 1896. It was part of the Pacific Hwy Scenic Drive from San Diego to Vancouver between 1913 and 1931. It was the perfect time to find autumn color change.

When I got to the head of the drive, the rain just dissipated. The ground was still wet. The air was clear. Oh, it is always clear up here!!! I wasn’t sure what I wound find here, but taking my time since I wasn’t scheduled to go into the office until the morning.

I found gorgeous colors of green, orange, red, brown, all blended perfectly together per Mother Nature’s direction. Since I was heading north, the Pacific Ocean, along with the San Juan Islands were on my left side. There were hardly any traffic on this road, a car here and there, and serenely quiet. It is a one way road in each direction, with lots of bends and turns. I wonder what this would be like in the winter snow covered time?

I stopped at one point and walked around a bit. I was surprise how big the leaves are. My shoe size is 5 and the leaves on the ground are larger than my foot! When I lived in Minneapolis, during the fall, I love stepping on all the fallen crisp leaves as they made crunchy noise. Here, they are soggy but still lovely to look at. I saved one of these for my scrapbook page whenever I get to actually doing one!!!