100 Mile Walk: Day Six

 

[This post is part of a series detailing Cale and my plans for each leg of  our 100 mile walk to Great Wolf. Our goal is to establish a safe route that follows sidewalks and trails as much as possible, and provides good places to stop, refuel, and refresh along the way. We actively solicit your suggestions if you know the area we will be walking through.]

Start: Hampton Inn & Suites DuPont
End: Holiday Inn Express, Lacey
Total distance: 14.1 miles

On Day Six Cale and I will spend most of the day walking west. Nothing particularly interesting stands out about Day Six as I explore the details, but it will be fun to get close to Olympia, our state capital. And it is our last day tracking I-5; on Day Seven we veer south and head off on our own.

Walk to Breakfast

Start: Hampton Inn & Suites DuPont
End: McNamara's Pub & Eatery
Distance: 1.2 miles
Time: 30 minutes (7:30am - 8:00am)

As far as I can tell, there isn't a lot near our hotel, so we will walk a simple 1.2 miles (with sidewalks) along Wilmington Drive to breakfast. As the previous day should be a short day, we'll get an early start.

Walk to Lunch

Start: McNamara's Pub & Eatery
End: Curry Corner
Distance: 8.5 miles
Time: 4 hours (9:00am - 1:00pm)

We'll need to eat a big breakfast, since our next leg is a long one. There doesn't seem to be a lot along the road -- we even have to go somewhat out of our way just to get to a restaurant for lunch. The path has a lot of little steps, but seems straightforward:

1. Follow the main loop west, following McNeil Street, turning left onto Hyland Street, and then left onto Hoffman Hill Boulevard, and finally only Mounts Road SW. Each stretch should be about half a mile, and my guess from looking at the map is that the path will be easy to follow. The path takes us through a residential neighborhood, and there are nice sidewalks until Mounts Road. Mounts Road has no sidewalks, but is small and seems to run through a golf course so the passage should be fine.

2. We'll then cross I-5, turn right, and follow Nisqually Road for three miles. Nisqually Road (aka the Old Pacific Highway) has no sidewalks and seems fairly fast. It is wooded and pretty, but probably a hard walk where we will need to pay a lot of attention.

3. Finally, we'll branch off of the Old Pacific Highway to get to the restaurant. This involves turning right onto 7th Avenue SE, taking a left at a fork half a mile later onto Steilacoom Road SE, following the road through a number of curves (and a mile and a half) until Dutterow Road. We will still not have sidewalks, but we will be passing through farm land so hopefully it should be safe enough. On Dutterow Road we will make a right, and pick up sidewalks again. In a little less than a mile we will arrive at Martin Way E, where our lunch restaurant is located.

Afternoon Walk

Start: Curry Corner
End: Holiday Inn Express, Lacey
Distance: 4.4 miles
Time: 2 hours (2:00pm - 4:00pm)

To get to our hotel, we will walk most of the way along the road the lunch restaurant is on, Martin Way E. After 4.0 miles, we will take a left right before I-5 to follow a nice path through St. Martin's University to College Street SE. A quick jog to the left and then a right onto 3rd Avenue SE will get us to the hotel. If we have the energy, we can also go out of our way to the Woodland Creek Community Park, but the default plan is to go straight to the hotel from lunch.

For dinner, after getting settled in I think we will eat at Jasmine Thai. The walk from the hotel is very short. We just continue on a little further along 3rd Avenue SE, cut through the park onto Golf Club Rd SE, and then turn right onto 6th Avenue SE.