To Port Townsend!

Port Townsend

On my second morning in Washington, I woke up to the beautiful sounds of all the birds in the yard. The crows, the squirrels, the jays, the chickens were singing their morning songs. So precious! 

On day two of my adventures in the North West with my aunties, Arnie and Jan, we woke up early, fed and pet the furry and feathered people, then filled our thermos' with coffee and jumped in the car.

We had a ferry to catch.

Now, for my San Diegans and all non-ferry boat people, this was a big deal. For Washingtonians, this is an every day event, but the car ferry in Edmonds was amazing. We drove through the hills, admiring the dew and the footprints left behind by the rain in the night. When we came to the last high point before reaching Edmunds, this was our good morning greeting from the west:

Those white peaks in the distance are snow covered mountains. The Olympia mountains, to be exact. And yes, that blue stuff on the top, that's blue sky. It was a GORGEOUS MORNING with nothing but sunshine all day. 

We sat and awaited the ferry, our car was second in line. It was a surprisingly organized process. Perhaps it's because the people of WA have done this for so long, it's as standard a practice as starting one's car, but I was impressed.

We were on the lower deck and our car was only a few back from what in this direction was forward (it's hard to tell on ferry boats). As soon as everyone was all settled, we hopped out of the car, dawned our warm gear, and headed to the top to check out the views. And we weren't the only ones.

BUT this was Washington on the water in early March...In other words, it was FREEZING. So we hid behind the wind wall to try to keep warm.

But I love the feeling of the wind in my face, even if it's freezing, so I braved it for a while. 

At some point, we went back down into the really nice inner deck where there was a cafe, a newspaper stand, and a nice sitting area. We braved the viewing deck and realized that there was nothing but sunshine! Meanwhile, I do believe it was raining in San Diego...

Our ferry landed in Kingston and we began the drive to Port Townsend. We were headed to the tall ship Adventuress. She is a 103 year old schooner. The drive was beautiful. Learned all about the native trees and the logging industry up here. We even found where the buffalo play!

We made it to Port Townsend and bought some local cheese to enjoy while we watched the morning's light grow. Port Townsend is an interesting artist town that has had several of its buildings from the 1800s preserved. 

We skipped around until our appointment with the Special Projects/Development Coordinator of Adventuress, the sailing ship of Sound Experience. My aunts had been galley crew on Adventuress on many adventures past. They wanted to share with me the sailing boat that had brought much joy, laughter, and stories into their life. I'm a bit of a tall-ship person, so this was something I was really looking forward to. It was great fun getting to meet the former Pilot boat of San Francisco and hearing about the youth programs the organization promotes and hosts, which instill confidence, leadership, team building, and the passion of ship-wright skills in youth.

Adventuress

We walked all over this sweet little port town, enjoying Mexican food (yes, Mexican food and it was wonderful), delicious ice cream, and some yummy coffees. The ice cream parlor server told us to come back again, so we did. Our round two was for cold pressed coffee, which was very tasty and satisfying on such a cold day! The ice cream, was really good too. I enjoyed espresso ice cream and vanilla. Soooooooooooooooo good. (We had to follow up the ice cream with the coffee as we had chilled ourselves a bit too much.)

Eventually, we hopped back in the car and drove to to the Fort Warden State Park and looked out at the light house and Mt. Baker.

The mountains today were INCREDIBLE! We were surrounded by white peaks. The Cascades and the Olympias showed their beautiful majestic selves proudly and we enjoyed quite the load of Sunshine.

The day was starting to wind down, so we three adventurers hopped back in the car and headed east. We returned to our ferry and missed it by one car length! So while Arnie napped in the car, Jan and I explored the little port town, looking at all of the mom and pop businesses. 

Once the next ferry arrived, we were the first car on board, which was really neat as we enjoyed front row seats of what was coming. It was fun to watch the lights of the houses and businesses in Edmonds twinkle to life on the far coast while we approached. It started to drizzle on us once we landed and headed up the hill, back to the Coldesac Farm. Once we made it back, we fed the furry and feathered ones and enjoyed our Thai leftovers. I bonded with my new furry friends, Mocha Moch, who took claim of my suitcase and her brother Colby Jack. 

Colby jack was hogging the blankets

We soon settled for the evening and then it was off to bed! We had a big day ahead. We were to travel into the north to play with the Canuks!

If you have no idea what a Canuk is, you'll just have to wait until next week for our next post of the Weekly Read! If you do know, come on back anyway to learn about the adventures of my aunties and me!

Until then,

Your humble author,

S. Faxon

PS - Can't figure out why the background is white. Ugh. Sorry if that's annoying. If you have any suggestions on how to avoid/fix this, please leave your comments below.