On Monday I had a nice little outing with my Mom. The backstory on this is my Dad is building a house for a gentleman that is a Tuna Fisherman. He was taking his boat from Bellingham to Port Townsend on Monday to put it in drydock for a clean up for the season. My mom was interested in the big boat, and asked if she could ride along. So I dropped her off at the Bellingham Harbor at 8am on Monday. Then I came home and did a few chores, got my things together, and drove to the Keystone Ferry. It was a spectacular day, and great for a ferry ride. As the ferry was nearing Port Townsend, I could see the boat that mom was riding in on, it was just behind us. I could not have asked for better timing!
So after we made land, I found my way to the drydock area, to pick her up. I only had to wait a couple of minutes before the big boat slowly slipped into the harbor. The maneuvering of the boat is second nature to these guys, they just slipped it in there, turned it around and settled in on the dock. My mom was beaming, she had a wonderful trip!
After chatting with everyone for a couple minutes, we made our way into town to enjoy the wonderful little shops that fill Port Townsend.
We walked out Union Dock, and enjoyed the view it had to offer. It is a newer structure for people to get out over the water. It was a nice space to sit, reflect and enjoy our surroundings. We then made our way through the shops, enjoying a few of them before they closed for the evening. I found a beautiful pair of chopsticks for Bernie. I had gotten him a really nice rice bowl for Christmas, but could not find a nice pair of chopsticks anywhere around here. So now his beautiful bowl has equally beautiful chopsticks.
Mom got us a room at the Manresa Castle. It is an amazing structure! It was a mansion built for a wealthy family. It has a long twisting history, changing purposes, adding a big addition, a handful of owners. It is now a lovely hotel and restaurant. Our room was fun and excentric, a maze of a few different rooms all connected together. Their gardens were starting to get some blooms, and although some spots were empty, you could tell it was a lush garden in the summer.
The next morning we went down to see the boat pulled out on land. Wow, its amazing to see how much of a boat we miss under water. This is my mom standing in front of the boat. Look how tiny she is! Boats like this really are amazing.
Here is a view that you can kind of see the whole boat. It was just so big I couldn’t get a good picture of the whole thing. Isn’t that lift system amazing! They lift it out with this, and wheel it to this spot where they presure wash it. It is over a couple of grates here to catch all the ‘toxic’ paint that comes off with the cleaning process. Then it will be wheeled over to another spot (probably happened today) where it will be taken off the lifts and they will finish cleaning and then start painting it again, with the same kind of paint that helps to resist things growing on the boat. I really have to wonder how much of that toxic paint just kind of wears off into the water, and with all the hundreds of thousands of boats that use that particular kind of paint that are out there, what are the effects on our oceans? Scary.
It was foggy in the morning, and as it started to burn off it really made everything look magical. Even this pulp mill looked magical with the fog and Olympic Mountains behind it. Every once in a while even industry looks beautiful.
Unfortunatly I have not trained myself to take enough pictures yet, I failed to get photos of the Ferry trip, and of the beautiful buildings of Port Townsend. I am sorry I don’t have those to share with you, because it really is a magical town. There are so many fun, artistic, and unique shops that fill the main street. Its a great town to even just window shop. We did find some good treasures though. I had been looking for a nice owl pendant for my hike, because owls are going to be my totem animal for the summer. I really had not found anything, and we went into a hat shop (because my mom loves hats) and there was some jewelry. So I peeked in the case. There were all kinds of great wildlife pendants and earings. Right in the middle of all of these was a beautiful owl pendant. After looking at it, deciding to look around town, looking around town, and making our way back to that shop, my mom bought it for me. A very kind gift (it was a wee bit expensive)!
After a lovely day of wandering around town, we made our way back to the ferry. The wind had picked up through the later part of the day, and there was a bit of swell showing up on the water. It made it a bit of a bumpy ride, but it was still quite enjoyable.
It was a great outing with my Mom before we leave for our hike this summer. We are starting to get things organized and packed up for our hike, we leave this Sunday for our big adventure. While on the trail we make it to a computer once in a while (it the towns we re-supply at), and I send out mass e-mails to let everyone know what we are up to, and how the adventure is going. If you are truely interested in being on this list, let me know by comment, and I will add you on.
