Port Townsend, WA

-
It's been a good few days off. We've done the following in no particular order:

- I got a new book from a fantastic used book store by the water. John McPhee's "Oranges"
- We ate Chinese food. The portions were enormous.
- Hung out in a coffee shop and enjoyed the coastal view and WiFi.
- Went to the cinema. "The Miseducation of Cameron Post." It was good.
- Walked the docks. Lots of beautiful boats up here. Many older/traditional.
- Befriended a park ranger and chatted about our trip and her work in Washington.
- Took a taxi home from the movie because we got fancy after a lot of walking and the bus stopped running.
- Did the laundry.
- Strolled the main street boulevard.
- Rach did some additional tent sealing repair.
- Visited the Northwest Maritime Center and saw some wooden boats under restoration.
- Saw plenty of rigging shops, sail lofts, and boatyards to service the craft up here.
- Made friends with our campsite neighbors from Astoria, OR and enjoyed their campfire.
- Hiked along the beach. (Low tide timing was important.)
- Read the local newspaper.

Now it's time to set off again. We're making a scenic detour to loop around the Olympic Peninsula and National Park before returning to southbound travel. In a few days more we're set to meet up with my Dad in Centralia, WA. He'll join us by train and then we'll continue as a party of three.

Thanks for reading.

Found a swing on our walk down the beach

Low tide

Didn't see any crabs

https://www.schoonermartha.org/

Victorian in the downtown

My Dad's bike in a shop

Looking out to the Sound

Drive-through house

Pretty afternoon

Day winding down

Hats keep Rach warm

Comments

  1. BenSeptember 19, 2018 at 10:47 AM

    By my calculations you'll be around SLO/SB around 10/10-10/17. Let me know what your plans are, considering to come meet you guys for the last leg. Are you going to go all the way to the border?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. mikeroddySeptember 22, 2018 at 7:39 AM

      I like that vote of confidence in our speed and progress. I think it could be a hair slower. You can follow the blog to see how we go of course.

      You're very welcome to join us for that stretch. We haven't decided on a finish. Maybe Los Angeles, but maybe San Diego.

      Delete
  2. CheriSeptember 19, 2018 at 7:30 PM

    As always, we loved the pictures. After all this bicycling are you missing your boat?

    Ride safely.

    Cheri

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. mikeroddySeptember 22, 2018 at 7:39 AM

      Seeing all the boats - especially the ones that are well kept - makes me want to get ours in order.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gentle Undulations

-
Image
"Gentle Undulations" sounds like a band from the 80s. It's also the best way to describe the terrain of southern Virginia. Our ride this morning took us past wheat fields in various stages of growth under a blue sky peppered with fat white clouds. We had no rain today, which was a nice change. We mostly rode on quiet rural roads with tortoises and snakes also making their way across the thoroughfare. We went past places with names lifted from my home country, places like Stonehenge, Isle of Wight, and Scotland. However - given that we went past all these places in the span of a few hours - the settlers decided not to copy the original geography. Around noon we took a 20-minute ferry ride across the James River to Jamestown. Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in America and, boy, do people seem to like to visit it. Despite it being a fairly random Wednesday in May the visitors' center had a lot of cars parked outside it and people were making their ...
Read more

Variable Weather

-
Image
Yesterday we officially entered the British part of the trip. The weather was overcast and cold (52 deg F/11 deg C). I'm pretty sure London was actually warmer. Due to the dismal weather we weren't inclined to take a break until about 24 miles in when we reached the town of Lindsay. This was the only town of the day with any kind of business though we were well stocked with snacks and lunch. We huddled together under the overhang of the roof as it began to rain. The rain eased up before too long and we continued on our way. Later we took a break just standing at the side of the road and I took the chance to wish Happy Birthday! to my younger brother. The scenery was much the same as previous days: gentle hills, grasslands, lots of hay bales waiting to be collected, and the occasional herd of cows meandering around. A group of pronghorns scampered away as we rode past, flashing their white tails towards us. Did you know that pronghorns are not antelope nor deer, and that their...
Read more

Irregular Rhythms

-
Image
Three days of no riding appears to have thrown off our rhythm. We had a late start to the morning when we left Port Townsend. There was laundry to sort, a blog post to publish, and crumpets to eat. Somehow all of our gear fit on our bicycles again and we were on the road by 9:30 am or so. We experimented with taking a shortcut and found it to be along a loud, busy highway. So we returned to the route and found... a loud, busy highway. We took another shortcut and made it to highway 101. The road curved around to the town of Blyn where we took a break at a market. Mike had a very good sandwich (two kinds of cheese!) from their deli, I enjoyed some pesto pasta. Despite the good food, we were finding the day difficult. On the previous day we had walked around 6 miles while exploring Port Townsend and had, perhaps, overdone it. We were not enjoying the ride so we finished early at a campground east of Sequim (pronounced 'skwim'). The afternoon was sunny so we spread various bits of...
Read more