Travelogue: Tacoma and Port Townsend

 

Aboard Zodiac, Puget Sound, WA

The Pacific Northwest is always such a fun, interesting place to visit.  For this year's trek to the Wooden Boat Festival in Port Townsend, we decided to tack on an extra night in Tacoma at the front end so that we could visit the Glass Museum and just enjoy revisiting parts of the town we hadn't been to in a while. Our older daughter went to University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, and we always liked visiting her there.

Since reading The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier earlier this summer, I particularly wanted to see a glass blowing demonstration, and I wasn't disappointed. We watched the crew make a cat pitcher out of glass like the ones shown below--they weren't available in the gift shop yet, or I would've bought one!

After enjoying Tacoma, we headed north, stopping in Port Ludlow for lunch, where we saw this very cool totem pole. 

Then on to Port Townsend for the Wooden Boat Festival. This was our 4th time attending the festival, and it never disappoints. We stayed about a mile from the marina where the festival is held, right on the water where we watched herons and gulls as well as a herd of deer each morning. We got well over 10k steps a day--walking to/from the festival, as well as roaming the docks, walking to various venues, etc.

The highpoints of the trip:

1) Chatting with a boat builder who built virtually the same boat that my husband, Jeff is currently building. He was a wealth of valuable information. 

2) Going for a sail on this 160-foot, 101-year old beauty. The Zodiac is based in Bellingham, WA and has an all-volunteer crew who were amazing. They also do multi-day cruises over the summer, so maybe next year we may opt for something more than a 2-hour cruise.

Zodiac 

3) Attending two absolutely terrific bird talks - one on puffins, by John Piatt, marine biologist and director of the World Puffin Congress, and one on the world of seabirds, by Peter Harrison, renowned seabird expert and author of the definitive guidebook on seabirds.

4) Discovering a couple of great new restaurants--if you are ever in Port Townsend, try Finistere for an upscale meal (we had a sampling of small plates and sides to share), and Tommyknockers for delicious Cornish pasties.

As always in the Pacific Northwest, we had a great time with mild weather (only one rainy afternoon) and found interesting, friendly dogs and people, including Bug and owner!

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)

Mid-Month Update

I am loving September - the days are warm, the nights are cool, the tomatoes are ripe, and the raspberries are abundant!

Travel - we did a quick weekend trip to Port Townsend, WA for the 43rd annual Wooden Boat Festival. It was wonderful. Flew into Seattle--drove to Gig Harbor for lunch at NetShed #9, then drove up to Port Townsend. Checked into the lovely Palace Hotel (I think we got the last hotel room in town--must have been a cancellation because it was only 3 blocks from the festival dock), and then enjoyed the afternoon and evening. Had a great day on Saturday attending events, walking the docks, talking pictures, and enjoying the beautiful day. Drove back to Gig Harbor--had a fabulous dinner at Brix 25. Flew home to Colorado Sunday morning.  So much fun!

Here's what I've been reading...

Lavinia - my first Ursula Le Guin, very similar to Circe by Madeline Miller in that Le Guin tells the story of Lavinia, last wife of Aeneas, and a creation of Virgil who merely mentioned her in his story of Aeneas fleeing the aftermath of Troy and founding Rome. I enjoy seeing the women who are tangential to the mythic stories finally getting their day. I loved the relationship between Lavinia and the poet, and found her story of pre-Roman life on the Italian peninsula to be fascinating. I'm not a sci-fi fan, so I don't anticipate reading much of Le Guin, but this one was good.

Educated - memoir by Tara Westover, who told the story of her life growing up in a uber conservative Mormon home in Idaho with an abusive older brother, controlling parents, and a mountain on which she could roam at will. It was compelling and inspiring. Westover ended up educating herself with the help of BYU, Oxford, and Harvard. She is also a talented singer and I really enjoyed listening to her sing in a YouTube video that I found.

Fall of Giants - book one of Ken Follett's Century Trilogy, covering WWI through the experiences of a Welsh mining family, German and British aristocrats, Russian peasants, American politicians and journalists and gangsters. I enjoyed it immensely. It helped me wrap my head around the places and battles as well as the politics and societal stresses the marked the beginning of the 20th century. Follett is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors. First rate storytelling against a huge backdrop. Definitely my kind of book. I fully intend to read the rest of the trilogy.

Hope you are enjoying this bridge month - as we shift to fall in the northern hemisphere and spring in the southern.