Little Egypt and the Road Less Traveled

I get to pass roads and waterways with names like Cranberry Creek, Preacher’s Slough, and Muddler Road.

Together and separately Dave and I make a lot of trips from our home in Gig Harbor to our home near the sea in Ilwaco. To keep things interesting and because we like exploring a bit on the byways we have come up a number of alternate routes to get to and from, none of which involve hectic I-5.

Forever and a day I had bombed down I-5 from the Puget Sound Area to Olympia where I took the Ocean Beaches exit toward the coast. I began driving that route when I was 16 and rode it with my parents for the sixteen years before that. When Dave and I moved to Gig Harbor Dave convinced me to try going through Shelton and avoiding I-5. He tried it and said it only took fifteen minutes longer than driving on the freeway and was so much more scenic and less stressful. I tried it and LOVED the lack of the freeway.

Once past Shelton we’ve developed several combinations of routes and we each have our favorite. Mine is to take the Cloquallum Road between Shelton and Elma, then the Montesano-Brady Road before catching the highway at Montesano. Dave likes to take 101 to the McClearly exit and then the Elma-Hicklin Road to Elma where he catches the highway to Montesano. We both like to occasionally take the road from Shelton to Matlock and Matlock to Brady before either catching the highway to Montesano or staying on the old highway that parallels it.

One of the things I like about taking the by-ways is that I get to pass roads and waterways with names like Cranberry Creek, Preacher’s Slough, and Muddler Road. On Labor Day I decided to indulge my long time curiosity about a road I’ve driven by numerous times coming from Shelton—W. Little Egypt. Where would W. Little Egypt take me? For once I was not in so much of a hurry that I couldn’t see where the road went so I turned my Screaming Yellow Zonker to the right.

Although I did discover Pyramid Ct. after I turned right onto Little Egypt, I didn’t find anything to explain how it got its name, but I did discover four miles of lovely country road where the shoulders are grass, the speed limit is 25 and it winds around through farms and trees until it hooks up with Highland Drive and takes you back out to the highway a few miles back from whence you came.

My little adventure probably cost me a half hour in travel time, but it was relaxing and entertaining time and I will continue to take the roads less traveled. Maybe in two weeks I will check out W. Dayton Airport Rd.