Port Townsend Tour: Days 6 and 7 in Port Townsend

There are a myriad of things to do in Port Townsend and Christine and I fill the days as we often do, seeking out the simple things we enjoy. After breakfast in camp we walk along the beach up to the Point Wilson, watching the birds and fisher folk, listening to the lapping of the waves, enjoying each other's company.

We bike into town, park our bikes and wander. We approve of the Broken Spoke's choice of rental bikes.

While Christine and I love our Kindles (they save room and weight on tour and space at home, letting us carry the equivalent of a library something smaller than most single books), we also love old paper books. The word is that William James Bookseller will be closing at the end of the year when its owner retires but it's still open now and we spend at least an hour wandering the stacks. Despite the weight of paper, we wind up buying a little something.

Of course there is also lunch and ice cream and looking at the water.

Sunday we pack up camp and roll back into Port Townsend.

Christine loves old church buildings and Port Townsend's St. Paul's is a real gem.

After church, we wander downtown. Because it's film festival weekend, movie folks are in town. This makes always odd Port Townsend just that little bit odder.

As we're having a late breakfast of Green Eggs and Ham (ham, cheese & spinach all scrambled up, really good!) at the Blue Moose Cafe, I can't help but think that three year old me looking forward in time half a century would totally approve of the life being lived by fifty-three year old me.

We check out the ReCyclery, which is still under construction and closed but obviously awesome. For those of you keeping score at home, for a town of about 9,000 people, Port Townsend is pretty darn rich in bike resources.

As we roll out of town, I see Port Townsend's Victorian Bike Lady riding along. I'm not quick enough with the camera, but my pal Bob did a nice blog post about her earlier this year.

The naval military history of the area has left this part of the world rich in parks. After spending the past two nights at Fort Worden State Park, we ride just a few miles south of town and settle in for Sunday night at Fort Townsend State Park.

Port Townsend Tour: Day 5 Fort Flagler State Park to Fort Worden State Park

Away from the lights and sounds of the city the woods at night become very dark and are usually very quiet. So when we hear the crunching in the darkness Christine and I are both quickly wide awake. "What do you think it is?" she asks me. I confess that I don't know. "It sounds like an animal munching something," she theorizes. Our food is all packed away in the bag in the tree (I hope) but I grab my headlamp, pull on my shoes and tell her I will investigate.

The sound is clearer the instant I leave the tent, it's rain. It has been dry for weeks, dry enough that Christine and I have basically forgotten what a light rainfall sounds like. And what it sounds like, in the dark, in the woods, is very much like the sound a raccoon would make as it consumes a bag of potato chips. There's no raccoon here and our food bag is still safe and sound, high but not quite dry in a tree.

It's damp in the morning and raining lightly. Christine and I layer on our rain gear, eat breakfast, break camp, pack up and head toward Port Townsend.

We ride off the islands, and into Irondale and then follow the Irondale Road, SR-19 and SR-20 northward.

A few miles south of Port Townsend we turn onto the quiet and scenic Larry Scott Memorial Trail which takes us into town.

We stop to restock our groceries for a couple of days at the Safeway and get a copy of the excellent Port Townsend Walking and Biking Map from the local Visitor Center.

Years ago I wrote a description of Port Townsend that I still think is a fair summation of the town:

Port Townsend is a place whose past is not quite past, whose present is not quite now and whose residents proudly proclaim that "we're all here because we're not all there." It's a town where hippies have become capitalists to survive, where the guy who fixes your manure spreader has sculptures for sale in SoHo, where the old fort serves as a movie set and where the waitress at the diner may live in a Victorian mansion or a tin shack back in the woods. It's a place that's a little hard to get to, a little hard to explain, damn hard to leave and even harder to live in. If it was closer to Seattle and not protected by twisty roads, long bridges, flakey ferry service and the sulphurous scent of a working paper mill, the town would be overrun with tourists every day instead of just every weekend.

It's the town where we're going to spend a couple of days. And yes, this is the Friday of the Port Townsend Film Festival so Christine and I are two more tourists in a town packed with tourists. But we have enough local knowledge to zig when the crowd zags and we're not planning on going to any of the movies so things work out fine.

We do stop by and see Bob and Marilyn at Bob's Bikes. Bob half-jokingly threatens to put me to work so we stash the bikes at his place and retreat to Sweet Laurette for lunch.

After lunch we retrieve our bikes and roll up and over the big ridge in town to Fort Worden State Park.

We book a hiker/biker site at Fort Worden for 2 nights. This will serve as our base of operations for the next couple of days.

Port Townsend Tour: Day 4 Oak Bay County Park to Fort Flagler State Park

Another misty morning dawns but the day clears and warms quickly. We are not riding far today, our next campsite is only ten miles away and we have no need to hurry.

A small bridge connects the mainland to Indian Island, a green chunk of land composed almost entirely of a major U.S. Navy munitions facility. The road skirts the southern edge of the island with lovely views of Oak Bay to the south and barbed wire and signs warning of severe consequences to the north.

Marrowstone Island is connected to Indian Island via a narrow causeway at the southern end of the Kilisut Harbor. As we roll across the causeway, I look left and see a heron wading in the shallow waters. "Hey, look at the heron!" I yell out. Christine, who has been rolling a bit ahead, stops her bike and looks back. "Hey," she points, "look at the deer!" Sure enough, in addition to the heron, a buck is wading across the gap between the two islands.

Marrowstone Island on a sunny September day is a fine place to be. The traffic is light, the views are amazing, the boats and buildings are very interesting.

The only town on Marrowstone Island is Nordland and the town basically is the Nordland General Store. If the store doesn't have it, you probably don't need it.

We picnic at Mystery Bay. We think maybe a hobbit built this shed.

Boats come in all shapes and sizes. This Hydrobike caught my eye. Christine's comments were 1) "Yes that's quite nice." 2) "No, you don't need one." She's right, of course.

I don't need a big boat with a dog either, but this is a lovely vessel.

We pedal to the north end of the island and camp at Fort Flagler State Park. It's mid-week in mid-September and we have our choice of dozens of campsites.

Fort Flagler looks out across the water toward Port Townsend, tomorrow's destination. The evening sun on the water presents postcard perfect ending to another day.