Chimacum, Washington August 30, 2013

Today we woke up to a sunny day. We got ready to move and drove 20 miles to the Escapees Park at Chimacum. We were hoping for an RV site, but they are full. The office manager told us that someone was supposed to leave tomorrow, so we are hoping to get hook-ups.

 After we got settled into the dry camping, we drove to Port Gamble, a small town southwest of us. It is a little tourist town full of old houses. They have a fabric store we had to go see. It is housed in what used to be an old horse stable for the local Hotel.  It was later used for storing cars. It was used for a fire station for a short time, and was used for a maintenance shed until 2008 and in 2010 it was converted into commercial space.

The post office and garden are on the right.

We walked around the old town and by what is now the post office, there is a lovely flower garden. We couldn't believe how large the blooms are. Most of them are Dahlias, with one poppy in the mix. One of the prettier flowers is larger than the span of my hand.

This is over 10" wide.

 Across from the post office is the general store. It also has a café in part of it. Upstairs is a shell Museum. There are shells and coral from all over the world. A lot of them are very large.

This old home was in Port Gamble. Cindy especially liked the Stained glass.

We also got to see more of the beautiful scenery, including this picture of the water.

We went to the little town of Poulbo which is about 10 miles south of Port Gamble. It has a tourist section. The town has a Norwegian feel to it. We walked around this part of town for a little while and then headed back toward Chimacum.

This mural was on one of the businesses.

Cindy liked this painting on the bakery. 

On the way over we crossed what the GPS said was a floating bridge. On the way back, the draw bridge must have closed the road, because the traffic was stopped for about 4 miles. We were about 3 miles from the bridge and there was at least a mile behind.We had been warned about delays if a boat or ship went through, so it was no surprise to get stopped. After about 15 minutes we finally got to cross the bridge and get on our way.

 

We found this old barn while looking for Black Berries.

On the way back we wanted to find somewhere to pick Black Berries, and after driving some of the side roads, we found a good place to get berries. We probably will go back and get more berries before we leave here.

Thanks for visiting.

Diamond Point Resort August 29, 2013

 

Look how cloudy it is.

Today was another rainy day. I don’t have much to report because we just took it easy today. We did go to the John Wayne Marina to see it. It is so named because John Wayne donated the land to the city of Sequim. There were lots of sail boats there. There is also a lot of beautiful scenery. Being from a state that has lots of desert, it sure is different here. This part of the state brags that they only get 16 or 17 inches of rain per year, but the humidity is high enough to keep most of it green. For so little rain, we seem to have gotten our share.

I haven’t mentioned it before, but the name Sequim is pronounced Skwim. It is an Indian word. Both Cindy and I thought it was an interesting pronunciation.

After the Marina we stopped at the local Casino so Cindy could get picture of the totem poles. 

Tomorrow we are going to the Escapees Park in nearby Chilacum. They won’t take reservations, so we don’t know if we can get to stay or not. It is only about 20 miles from where we are, so if they don’t have room, we will head further south toward where we have our next reservation. All the Coast to Coast parks won’t let us come in till next Tuesday. After our next reservation, we are headed toward Portland. (To shop at Fabric Depot, one of the nations largest fabric stores.)

Right now our plans are up in the air. Cindy’s mother is in the hospital. And because of her age, we may have to go home earlier than we had planned. Another thing we have going on is: our daughter wants to build a house, and need a General Contractor. I may have to go home and reinstate my General Contractor’s license to build it for them. Isn't it nice to be flexible and have your plans cast in Jello?

We are good with whatever happens. Thanks for visiting.

Diamond Point Resort August 28, 2013

This morning it was rainy all morning. It was supposed to partially clear up this afternoon. We drove to Port Angeles to check out the only quilt store there. It is kind of a cute store. Cindy (big surprise!) bought another pattern.

The ocean was a little foggy.

After that we drove up to the Olympic National Park to a place called Hurricane Ridge. It is a very scenic drive with lots of places to stop and take pictures. From one of the view points, on a clear day, you could see Victoria, Vancouver, and Bellingham Washington, plus a lot of the islands and bays in the area. I could see a little bit of Victoria in the far distance. It would have been a lot prettier picture on a clear day.

Part way up the mountain there was a deer right on the side of the road. It acted totally unafraid of the cars and went down acting like it wanted us to feed it. It got along side of the truck and was less than 5 feet from Cindy. She got some wonderful pictures.

Lots of beautiful views.

Cindy liked this and the next pictures.

When we got to the top there is a visitor center with views all the way around it. We could see at least 2 glaciers on the mountain in front of us. There were also some very scenic views of the mountains and valleys in the area. Cindy got several pictures of the clouds below us. The visitor center is 5242 feet above sea level, and the drive up is 17 miles.

This glacier has receded a lot in the past 25 years.

These clouds were below us.

At the parking lot there was a trail that we took to go up a little higher where we could see more of the scenery. At the top of the trail (which is not far) there were 3 deer eating. Again, they acted totally unafraid of people and just went about eating. At one point I could have reached out and petted one of the deer.

Little buck watching someone.

She came trotting right up to us.

The trail made a loop that went back to the parking lot, and there was another deer by the road. It acted like it wanted something to eat from us, and came running toward us. So today we saw a lot of beautiful scenery and several deer. The drive was well worth it.

Thanks for visiting.

Diamond Point Resort, Washington August 27, 2013

This morning we drove to Port Townsend to see all the old buildings. Our first stop was the Visitor Center. We got a map to show where all the old buildings are located. There are a lot of them on the main street in Port Townsend. We got several pictures of the old business buildings, most of which were built in the late 1880’s or 1890’s.

Fun soda shop.

One of the buildings that is not that old is an Ice-cream store decorated like the 1950's. It is kind of cute.

The sign on the organ said it was built in 1902.

 We found an old Methodist Church that was built in 1871. The sign said it was the oldest church in this part of Washington. When we went into the church, which was open, we noticed an old organ. The Pastor said it had been brought into the church in 2002. He asked if we would like to hear it, and we said sure. Another man proceeded to play it for us. He also played an organ that was part of the original building. He told us that the original organ dated from the 1790’s. It was quite loud for the size of the room. We both thought it was nice of them to play the 2 organs for us. They had really nice stained glass.

One example of  the stained glass.

We looked at the Post office building which was also built in the 1890’s and had originally been the Customs Building. It was interesting to see the old style building.  

Part of the original plans.

After all the sightseeing, we were hungry and went to the Belmont Hotel and Cindy had the open faced crab sandwich that had been recommended to us by Judy. I decided to have the fish and chips, but afterword wished I had gotten the crab sandwich. Thanks Judy for the recommendation.

Cindy's sandwich was much better.

We wanted to see Fort Worden, where the movie An Officer and a Gentleman was filmed. The buildings looked just like they did in the movie. There is also a lighthouse, that we could drive right up to, so we didn't have to walk 10 miles. This one was easy Sandie.

   

Part of the scenery by the light house.

After that, it was time to go see the quilt stores in town. As we drove along, we saw two deer right in town by all the houses. One was full grown and the younger one was about 3 blocks from the older one, and we don’t know if the first was its mother.

The first quilt store is not open on Monday or Tuesday and looked more like a design store than a quilt store. The second store was a little way out of town toward the RV Park. It was a nice store with a very helpful older lady running it. She gave us a pamphlet that listed all the quilt shop in this part of Washington and recommended at least 2 that we should see. Cindy did buy a panel from them.

These are some of the old buildings we saw. some of the newer houses looked like the old ones. There must be a city ordinance.

This was originally a mansion, and is now a B & B. It is for sale.

 We  went to see the City Court House, which the sign said was built starting in 1890 and was moved into in 1892.

There were at least three different faces on the court house.

After all the sightseeing, we were both tired and came back to the fiver. Thanks for visiting.