A narrow road above Samish Bay

Chuckanut Drive is State Route 11, and it is the reason this leg is short. WSDOT's description of the historic segment is blunt: a relatively narrow two-lane roadway with little or no shoulders, occasional widening, restricted sight distance, limited or non-existent clear zones, and severely reduced speed limits, set on the steep mountainside above Samish and Chuckanut bays. Convicts began building it in 1910 from a labor camp at the mouth of Oyster Creek; slowed by the terrain they completed only 4,000 feet of roadway, and in 1913 the Highway Department contracted Quigg Construction Company to build a further four miles. The road opened to automobile traffic in 1916, and by 1926 all but one mile between Oyster Creek and Blanchard had been paved. It carried the Pacific Highway, was designated US Route 99 in 1926, and took its current number in 1964. WSDOT calls it the premier historic scenic highway in the state.

The day's public anchor is Larrabee State Park, at 245 Chuckanut Drive on the seaward side of Chuckanut Mountain. Washington State Parks describes it as Washington's first state park: a 2,748-acre camping park with 8,100 feet of saltwater shoreline and postcard views of Samish Bay and the San Juan Islands. The land began as waterfront property that Bellingham businessman Charles Larrabee agreed to deed for the purpose; he died in 1914 and his wife Frances saw the gift through to completion. The state accepted the park in 1915 under the name Chuckanut State Park, and it was renamed for the family in 1923.

There is a fit between this road and the thing being asked for. The walk is not spectacular. It is one woman on a shoulderless highway, covering less ground in a day than on any other leg of this stretch. What she is asking of a stranger is smaller still: a cheek swab, done at home, mailed back in a prepaid envelope, by someone between 18 and 35. NMDP does the tissue typing and holds the record until the donor turns 61. Whether that record is ever matched to a patient is not something the donor decides, or ever gets to plan for.