The Drive East & The Oil Field

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Thursday
August 27
The drive across Washington,
Thursday morning we all loaded into Jane’s Honda Element and began our drive east to Idaho. We chose to drive rural roads and take Route 2 across the Washington instead of US Route 90, the cross-country interstate that starts at Logan airport in Boston and ends up in Seattle. We cruised along Rt. 2 past the suburbs of Seattle towards the Cascade Mountains. The drive is pleasant and interesting through numerous small towns. We passed dozens of espresso shops, saw mills as we climbed up the western slope through the foothills of the Cascades. Along the way we stopped at an interesting collectables shop. Their presentation of welded sculpture and antiques was a work of art in itself. We enjoyed some of the sculptures but didn’t know how we’d ship them home. As we drove into the mountains lunch places became a rare sight. When we saw a road a sign for the Cascadia Inn we followed it across an old steel bridge and entered the town of Skykomish. Crossing the bridge provided us with a quizzical surprise. We looked across what appears to be a town and the entire center is a construction site. Most of the buildings we can see are raised up off their foundations, sitting on cradles and apparently have been moved. We followed a series of signs through a maze of road detours to the Cascadia Inn, a small 14-room village inn and restaurant. This is one of the few businesses in town still open. We ordered and enjoyed well-prepared home cooked food. Under the heading “it’s a small world” we met another Red Sox fan when he came over to acknowledge my hat, but then he saw my UMass T shirt and it turns out it’s also his alma mater. He was a student when Karen and I were there. It seems he lived in the Patterson in the Southwest residence area right next to where Karen and I lived on campus. Patterson is also the dorm that Maxanne lived in when she lived on campus. He’s an engineering grad who now lives near Seattle and he’s working on this pollution clean up project of the entire town. He tells us how that Skykomish was a fueling stop for the Great Northern Railroad and for decades the railroad stored diesel fuel in underground wooden casks at the train station in the center of town. Over the years millions of gallons of oil leaked from the casks and into the soil. Only when the oil drifted a quarter mile from town and began bubbling up in the Skykomish River did it become a problem. The river is a protected area and a popular fishing spot and salmon run so something had to be done. The cleanup is now happening in phases with the first part of the project, the riverfront area completed. They began by driving steel piles into the ground to separate sections and keep the oil from flowing. Phase one moved the river and the homes closest to its’ banks. They dug up all the soil halfway across the river basin then replaced it, built a dike along the river and returned all the buildings to their original locations. Now they’re in the process of doing the center of town. All the buildings in that part of town are now raised up and moved. Wells and pumps all over the town have been removing the excess oil but the soil is still saturated. The soil from the center of town is being removed and replaced with clean soil and all the buildings will be returned to their original locations. Our new friend is engineering the next phase of the project. The local elementary school, a brick multi-story building has to be lifted up and moved so the soil beneath can be replaced. He’s facing the challenge of how to do it. We finished our interesting lunch said good-by and hit the road. Now we have an interesting tale to tell about a whole town that was moved but stayed in the same place. We crossed the bridge out of town and headed east where the road follows the river up to Stevens pass through tall trees and steep mountains.

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Photos

Collectables shop 1
Sight along Route 2

Skykomish 2
The oldest house in town after being resettled.

Skykomish 3
The new dike and bike way, along the cleaned up river