Everett, WA near Seattle19 Aug 2008
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Jasmine, Emogene's granddaughter, at Blue Moose in Port Townsend, WA.
Huge ferries that run between Edmonds & Kingston are well used &...
In Olympic NP forest trail to Marymere Falls
| A short drive south on I-5 to Everett, WA. We are a little north of Seattle & should be in a good location for seeing & doing things. That is just as soon as we decide what that will be. We are planning on relaxing & catching our breath a little. Once we got here the big event was going into downtown Seattle on Union street to pick-up our mail. It was nice that it was here waiting for us. Laundry & housecleaning are near the top of our to-do list at this time. We got the laundry done, but the rest of the housecleaning fell to the bottom of the list. We may only be able to come this way once. Housecleaning will always be there. The first day we went into downtown Seattle to the only post office to accept general delivery mail. Fortunately with that drive & a long wait in line to pick it up, our mail was there & we now "know" the way into downtown Seattle. Nellie our GPS will be traveling with us on all trips here. Wednesday a.m. we got off to an "early" start & went into downtown Seattle to the famous Pike Place Market. It is a wonderful, colorful place of people, sights, sounds, & smells. The fresh flowers, fish, fruit, & vegetables are worth the trip there. Then of course there are the sounds, smells & people that add to the overall effect. We were not impressed by the ordinary flea market type vendors, but I guess they add something. It was fun going there, even though we didn't buy anything ourselves.... A lot of pics were taken with the 2 cameras on Patti's neck. Next stop since it was rainy, overcast, etc. was to take a tour on the Ducks. It was a "short" bus ride away once we got on a bus. We had a short walk to the bus stop, but then missed the first one because we thought it was going to move forward at the bus stop to pick up passengers. Evidently in Seattle the whole block counts as the "stop" & if you want to catch that bus & not wait another 45 min, you better run to the end of the block & get on while it is waiting. A lesson learned which we shared with some other tourists. :-) The Duck tour was ok... it was a little loud with "rock" music rocking us along, a little wet so that the plastic curtains were down most of the time, etc. We did see quite a few things on our tour which included the famous grey house from the movie "Sleepless in Seattle". We didn't go to the top of the Needle because the clouds were so low there would not have been a view much less a view of Mt Ranier, Hood, Helen or Olympia. Oh well, we kind of got used to rain in AK & Canada. Thur a.m. we packed us & the dogs in the car & took off for the Olympic Penninsula. Our first stop was at the Edmonds-Kingston ferry which we found easily thanks to "Nellie". The ferry is huge... 4 stories overall with 2 for cars/trucks. We were amazed at how bigh the ferries are. Off the ferry it was a nice drive which took us through Port Gambel which is a neat, clean, Victorian-looking town. The kind of place where every house brings you to say "I could live there". We didn't really get to stop in Pt Gambel, but it is someplace that is very appealing & on the "stop" list if we get back here. We were equally pleased with Port Townsend. It has a population of 19,000 so isn't all that small, but it is a very interesting town with an appealing "downtown" area. We went to Port Townsend to "have lunch", but the real reason was to say "Hi" to our friend Emogene's daughters. We saw Tara at work at the credit union. We know Tara from a Sugarloaf Maine ski trip. We learned that her sister, Tana, was not working today at her restaurant, the Blue Moose, because it is Tana's birthday. Since Tana wasn't there, her daughter Jasmine was there running the cafe. So, we got to meet & talk to Jasmine. Tana went on the same Austria/Venice ski trip in 2007 with Emogene as did Patti. The Blue Moose was a great stop & we had a really good lunch there. Thanks to Tana, owner & chef, Hank will probably never again eat one of Patti's meatloaf sandwiches. Patti's can't compare to the one from the Blue Moose. After lunch, we drove west to Port Angeles & to one of the Visitor Centers for the Olympic NP. Since we only had one afternoon there, we went on to the Marymere Falls. The trail starts near the highway & an easy walk for the first 3/4 of a mile you get to walk to a wonderland of trees, ferns, moss, deer, etc. The last 1/4 of a mile is up hill/steps to a nice waterfall. It was a really nice experience & gave us a little exposure to the nature of Olympic NP. We saw deer right next to the trail on the way into the falls. Then later in the parking lot there was a doe & 2 fawns. They were quite used to people & traffic evidently. You couldn't of course walk up to them, but they shared the parking lot area without any problem. It was 7:30 or 8:00 by the time we got back to the rv, so we had a full day of excitement. The dogs are probably hoping we leave them at home the next time. :) Tomorrow the 22nd, we are going south to the Portland,OR area. We are going down ther to drive along/near the Columbia River Gorge. It will be our only taste of Oregon on this trip. We will spend at least one night in Oregon along the way headed east. We will probably go back up into Washington & then go over thru Butte, MT on our way to Mt Rushmore. |
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