One of the main draws of the Olympic peninsula in the Pacific North West is Olympic National Park. One of my favorite hikes ever lives here, along Hurricane ridge with sweeping mountain, rainforest and ocean views dropping from both sides of the ridge. Should have done our research though… this early in the year, it’s still snowbound. We were vaguely optimistic about getting a view from the car park perhaps. Unfortunately, the weather had other ideas, and a three hour each way drive was looking less attractive in layers of heavy cloud.
We settled instead for a hike in Miller Peninsula State Park. Ticked the rainforest box, and brought us out onto a very cool pebble beach with a view not that different to Port Townsend actually.
Our late lunch reward was Dungeness crab. I’ve heard of Dungeness crab and for some reason I thought it was from Scotland. Turns out Dungeness is a little town right here in Washington. More to the point, it’s the name of the local species of crab. The crabmeat was sweet, delicate and delicious (although personally I could do without all that faffing with nutcrackers for the crab legs, had to have a bit of help from my friends, thanks Darren).
Not sold on the whole thing.
We spent a night at North 47 Brewing, one of our Harvest Host hosts (albeit it was really just more of a public car park with a reduced chance of being moved on overnight by the police).
Darren and I had a big discussion as to why the brewery was called North 47, which resulted in me getting a derisory revision lesson on longitude and latitude. A bit of googling revealed that even though it felt like we were super far north in the US, we were still 2 degrees south of Paris! Who knew.
In fact we’re so far north in the US, we’re practically in Canada. We could almost smell Canada. We could certainly see it. Unfortunately Canada hasn’t relaxed its stance on not letting the riffraff in, so no Alaska road trip for us. 😢 Guess we’ll just have to put up with the Pacific North West, sigh, hard life.
Our last week in the PNW was spent on the small rural island of Bainbridge, a stone’s throw from Seattle. Over the last five years, I’ve been up to Seattle to visit our corporate offices almost once a month, so it’s like a second home to me. After a year and a half of pandemic-driven absence, it felt quite nostalgic to be back.
At the weekend, we took the ferry from Bainbridge to Seattle with our bikes. There was quite a hairy point at boarding where we were directed up the short steep ramp to the top deck with no notice. Heart in my mouth, I downshifted at lightning speed and by some slim miracle, I stayed wide-eyed, upright and in motion. Not my favorite bit.
Once we got to Seattle, the ride was mostly along bike paths, thumbs up. Although someone up there inadvertently set the wind chill to ‘Alaska’ setting, very glad I had my new bike jacket.
Like all good bike rides, it involved pizza and beer. Serious Pie delivered on all counts with their fennel sausage pizza. I have to say though, as a Brit I still struggle with pie. Pie is not pizza. Pizza is pizza and pie is pie. The word pie conjures up first savory: meat and potato pie, steak and kidney pie, I could go on. Failing that, you have pudding: apple pie and any other selection of fruit pies (which should of course be accompanied by custard). But pizza as pie? How did we get here?
downtown Seattle in the distance
The Office XPats office on Bainbridge was fun. Who’d have thought they would have a co-working space on a little island? Not only that, we weren’t the only ones there. It was a friendly atmosphere and they even had a happy hour (to put this in context, in 9 months of co-working this was our first happy hour!). During which, we were turned into minor celebrities for our traveling lifestyle. Not only that, we featured in their member newsletter.
Got our rainforest fix in here on Bainbridge too. Grand Forest turned out to be just that.
While not directly on the waterfront like Port Townsend, the Fay Bainbridge Park campsite in Bainbridge wasn’t too far off. Salty sea air, a pebble beach and driftwood, lots of it. Fun for chilling, for grilling, and strolling.
The campsite was also the perfect place to catch up with fellow Brits who live on Bainbridge island, Richard and Lynne. If there’s one thing that’s lacking in our lives right now, it’s genuine in-person human connection. We layered up and braved the elements for a bbq and catchup. Such a fun night, despite the unintended yet inexcusable error in spiking drinks (all me, sorry again!)!
Probably the biggest milestone on the trip so far was getting our Covid vaccination. Eligibility in the US had just opened up to all adults, more importantly all states were on a level playing field and no need to be resident in the state. We booked online for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, turned up at the pharmacy at the allotted time, offered up the sacrificial arm, and Bingo. Free to live a normal life. Well almost, just need a two week incubation and for the rest of the world to catch up.
