Centralia

After staying the night near Olympia on the fifth, I headed north, to Tacoma. Before leaving home I had opened a checking account so that I could use a debit card on the trip, instead of carrying a bunch of cash, but the card didn't arrive until after I had left on Amtrak. So my parents mailed it to my cousin, and I had to go back up to Tacoma to get it in the mail. A little out of the way, but a nice way, in part, to end the first week. A hundred miles to whip my feet into shape and then fill my pack back up with cookies and granola bars.
I got into Tacoma late on the sixth, and then spent the next day there, as well. Yesterday I rode back down to Olympia and started walking south.
My original route would have taken me east from there, but apparently the mountains that way are still really snowy and cold for May, and so I was advised to head farther south before going east. Now the plan is to head south to Vancouver, and then follow the Columbia from there. Hopefully that will get me into some better weather - the last few days have been pretty bleak, after the nice stretch I had going for a while.
Beyond Tumwater (south Olympia) I stopped in for a visit at a wolf rescue, four miles north of Tenino. Most of the wolves in the facility aren't in the species survival plan and won't be assimilated into the wild or bred. I guess they come from more domestic situations - zoos and households, where they've been overly exposed to humans. But it's a great place, from what I saw.
And then on to Tenino, and down highway 507 to Bucoda and finally into Centralia. I did twenty seven miles on the day and was pretty sore, though my blisters have all healed well and I was able to put in a lot of time barefoot, again. The initial rough stretch seems to have taken a break.
I slept, last night, behind the train station, in Centralia. It's a pretty nice area, or seems to be, and nobody bothered me, but the freight trains weren't wonderful, clamoring through all night. In between, though, I slept well. And this morning the aches that had settled into my joints quickly faded away.