south of Olympia,

The Portland, OR to Vancouver, WA Interstate Bridge crossing the Columbia River, seen NB from what is technically Oregon, but who's counting. The NB side is the original 1917 bridge for US 99, presciently predating the Interstate system by 40 years, while SB is the 1958 twin.


Back south into Oregon at higher resolution.


Aw, gee whiz, if RIDOT can get out here we're all DOOMED I tells ya! Well, this one not even a RIDOT could love. It has the state name, for one, and lower-case directional signage. Where do they get these?


Signage to get onto I-5 at Exit 1C from Mill Plain Boulevard WB in Vancouver.


This NB picture doesn't do the sign on the left justice, but it has the traces of old lettering, upside down, on what clearly was once a larger sign.


Sights of US 99 heading north from East Fork Lewis River to the Coweeman River, where old 99 is on its own on Kelso Dr. Often you will see these original four-lane bridges (or two plus shoulders) pressed into duty as one-way I-5 bridges, but at least one former 99 bridge squeezes all 4 lanes of I-5 onto it.


NB on the I-5 frontage road, at the beginning of WA 4 at Exit 39.


Aww, lookit the cutey shields! Exit 49 leads tourists to Mt. St. Helens. I say it that way because those who know the mountain come around the other side of it.


In 2014, WSDOT was gradually converting Exits 81 and 82 on either side of the Skookumchuck River in Centralia into a unified whole. My first photo is from the NB onramp where it used to join I-5, but is now extended north a ways. It fortunately still joined in time for me to see another ugly assembly like the one atop the page and then cross one span of the twin bridges, but you can see the new roads going in on either side such that all traffic using either of these exits is now kept off the 1951 bridges.


Same journey in the SB direction. At least the old bridges were only supplemented, not replaced.


Trosper Rd. WB, Tumwater. Who comes up with these names? How about Trooper Rd. and Turnwater?


As the end of US 101 merges into I-5 NB, the freeway approaches the graceful arch of Capitol Blvd., old US 99 heading south from Olympia.


I think this bridge is nice enough to photograph twice, don't you? In this direction, we get an old guide sign with deprecated use of "OK" and some very aggressive truck signs on either side of the ramp to US 101. We don't use "OK" anymore because the presence of the arrow is enough to tell you that you can use that lane.

Onto US 12 alone Continue north on I-5
Exit 49 to Business I-5, Castle Rock
Back to I-5 main page

Into Oregon on I-5
To WA 4
Exit 49 to WA 504
Exit 81 to WA 507
Exit 104 to US 101
Back to Washington Roads
Back to Roads