Madrona Beach: the last quiet stop before the Capitol

Madrona Beach is a name on a topographic map — the USGS Summit Lake quadrangle — and a road along the water, about thirty feet above sea level, on the western side of Eld Inlet. Eld Inlet is about six miles long, in Thurston County at the southern end of Puget Sound, the second southernmost arm of the Sound after neighbouring Budd Inlet. McLane Creek drains into its southern end and forms the mudflat called Mud Bay, the southernmost reach of Puget Sound, just outside the Olympia city limits, where US 101 runs. Olympia is about five miles east in a straight line; the walking route is longer.

Madrona is the local name for Arbutus menziesii, Pacific madrone — a broadleaf evergreen that grows west of the Cascade crest, in the Columbia River Gorge and at the coast in Washington. Its bark is smooth and light green to yellowish when young, dark brown to reddish when aged. It is intolerant of wet soils, and it is one of the natives listed for erosion control on ground like this.

This is the last stop before the Capitol. Nothing on this route has been an event. It has been one person walking, stopping in towns and at junctions and on shore roads like this one to explain what a donor registry is and what it is not — and the explanation does not change with the size of the audience. Joining means a cheek swab and a mailing envelope. The foundation's part ends at pointing to the official registry that does the rest. The next walking day reaches a building with a dome on it. This one is a road above a beach.