Seattle, Victoria and Home Again

1,200 miles later we are back home and glad to see gas prices are dropping. We actually found a $3.99/gallon near our house! The Prius did well averaging 52.6 mpg since we returned from the California trip.

Seattle provided several beautiful shirt-sleeve days for walking downtown. One day we left the car behind and took the ferry to Bainbridge Island with our friend Barbara where we enjoyed refreshment overlooking the marina. Bainbridge is a lovely town with easy ferry access to Seattle.





Victora BC was a late addition to this road trip so we headed back north from Seattle and took the 3-hour ferry from Anacortes to Sydney BC and drove down Vancouver Island to Victoria. Our hotel room gave us a great view of the water, a houseboat marina and the seaplanes taking off and landing. A walking trail took us along the water into the Inner Harbor and the stately Empress Hotel. Bryan took this photo because all the taxis here (and in Vancouver) are Prius. Smart decision by them.








One day we took a ferry to Salt Creek Island. It was supposed to be a hippie hangout but it looked like the hippies of the 60s were pretty well established and comfortable in their oceanfront homes and shops. This gate and a lot of guys with big beards were the only hangover of the 60s we found.

One more ferry ride back to Port Angeles and we headed home, heeding the the call of raspberries and blueberries waiting for us to pick them.

Rainforest Hike

Saturday we hiked to see petroglyphs on Cape Alava, the westernmost point in the contiguous United States. Here is Bryan standing, we think, on that point.
















The hike took us 3 miles through Olympic National Park rainforest, mostly on a boardwalk, and emerged onto the beach where we found the rock carvings a mile down the beach. The boardwalk was ok but the beach presented a challenge with fallen trees, driftwood. really large rocks and incoming tide.





















Fortunately our room had a really large soaking tub to recover from the adventure.

Olympic Majesty

Our July road trip started in Portland on Tuesday and took us north to Long Beach Washington for one night. The next day we took our time, stopping to explore historic towns, including the clamming/crabbing town of Tokeland. (If you want to go pick up that boat, I'll tell you where it is.)

We continued around the Olympic Peninsula to Discovery Bay where we have 4 nights in a super-comfortable condo right on the bay with plenty of time to explore the area around Port Townsend and Port Angeles.

The highlight so far has been a hike along Hurricane Ridge; the wildflowers were so plentiful and the Olympic range still has plenty of snow. It felt like we were in a Sound of Music video.






























We replenished our supply of U-Pick raspberries and took a look around a lavender festival in Sequim, We have one more full day before we head back south to Seattle for two nights. Once we booked the Worldmark resorts for this trip we decided to add Victoria BC so we will head up to Canada after the weekend.
















More as this trip continues.