Travelogue: Wooden Boats, Port Townsend, Olympic NP, Mt Rainier

 

100s of beautiful wooden boats on display in Port Townsend

Got back last Saturday from a wonderful trip to Washington state, where we lunched in Gig Harbor, spent two wonderful days at the Wooden Boat Festival in Port Townsend, visited Cape Flattery (the most northwestern point in the lower US 48), hiked in Olympic National Park (Lake Quinault), enjoyed the waterfalls of Mt Rainier National Park, and revisited Tacoma.

This was our second time attending the Wooden Boat Festival, and I hope not our last. My husband has been gearing up to build a wooden sailboat for a few years and hopefully he'll be able to get underway this fall. We also spent a morning on the beautiful Adventuress, sailing around the harbor. The Adventuress is a 133-foot schooner, originally launched in 1913.

Sister ship of the Adventuress, which was sailing at the same time we were.

Port Townsend is a lovely town, filled with historic buildings--we stayed at the Palace Hotel, which is just blocks from the festival--on the third floor, no elevator, but full of Victorian charm.

Obligatory selfie at Cape Flattery.

The rugged coast of Cape Flattery, where the wind never ceases.

There are several temperate rainforests in Olympic National Park. We visited a couple near beautiful Lake Quinault, which were surreal. Seemed like we were walking through Middle Earth--mossy, misshapen, ghostly, wonderful. Made me want to reread The Overstory.

On to Mt Rainier NP, which we had not visited before. It was cool and misty and socked in for almost the whole visit, and we never actually saw the mountain in all its glory. We did enjoy hiking--very cool vegetation that is so different from what I'm used to in CO--and there were lots of waterfalls. We ate both nights at a Ukranian restaurant next to our hotel in Ashford, which is just outside the park, and I discovered the joy that is a chicken piroshki.

Tractor carved out of wood, near the Ukrainian restaurant.

Last night in Tacoma. Tacoma gets a bad rap as a poor cousin to Seattle, but one of our daughters went to University of Puget Sound and we really fell in love with the town visiting her over the four years she was there. We did get a view of Mt Rainier at dinner in Tacoma at a waterfront restaurant. Figures!

Tacoma waterfront along Ruston Way--what's not to love!!!

One of my favorite things to do on vacation is to go to the local bookshops and buy something. So here's what I got on this trip:

Gig Harbor - The Woman in Cabin 10, by Ruth Ware (which I devoured during the trip)

Port Townsend - Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon, by Melissa L. Sevigny (hoping to start shortly)