The Pacific Northwest

 

  We ended up in Spokane, Washington after our week on the cruise boat up the Columbia and Snake Rivers.  Our car was waiting at the airport where we had left it several days earlier. We had another goal before returning home: to visit Becky's grandson Garrett in Port Townsend, Washington. 

  Port Townsend is in the Seattle-Tacoma  area, on the northern tip of one of the many peninsulas that form Puget Sound. It's a hotbed of wooden boat building and repair. Garrett had moved to Port Townsend three years ago to attend a wooden boat building school. The school was closed that year for Covid, but Garrett moved there anyway, got a job, and made some valuable contacts.

  From Spokane to Port Townsend is the same distance as Wannaska to the Twin Cities, with rush-hour Tacoma standing in for Minneapolis. Port Townsend is a working town, but is also a big tourist destination. To maintain its toney Victorian-era atmosphere, fast food restaurants and chain motels are banned. After much reading of reviews and descriptions, we settled on The Palace Hotel downtown. 

  Back in the Victorian era, indoor plumbing had been in its early stages. Chamber pots and shared facilities were the norm. Authenticity is one thing, but today's traveler demands privacy, so The Palace had installed a bathroom in each room. There was no point in extending the bathroom walls 14 feet to match those of the room, so a ceiling with an illuminated skylight was placed on the bathrooms at eight feet.  Five stars to that feature.

Nice, but I'd just as soon have a complimentary breakfast. 

  After we got settled, we met Garrett (age 23) for supper. He's been living in a small camper for the past three years. After finishing his course at the boatbuilding school, he got a job at a lumberyard that specializes in exotic and very expensive wood for boatbuilders. Garrett told us that he's ready to return to Minnesota and find a job in the marine industry.  He also plans to get his college degree. We were impressed with what he's accomplished and encouraged him in his goals.

  Port Townsend weather in April can be discouraging for tourists, but the next day we had beautiful weather to wander around nearby Fort Worden, now a state park, comb the beach for driftwood, and get a tour of Garrett's lumberyard.  The lumberyard had wood from all over the world, most of it from trees we had never heard of. We were shown mahogany just in from the Congo after a detour to Germany to be milled into five inch thick, five feet wide, thirty-two feet long slabs, on sale for just $20,000 each. Free shipping with Prime.

It will have to go on the roof rack.

  After the lumberyard, we drove over to the boatyard, a conglomeration of large sheds as well as boats out in the open. Workers were taking advantage of the nice weather to exercise their valuable skills. The nearby marina was filled with beautiful sailing yachts of all sizes with the names of far flung ports on their transoms.

  We spent the rest the day exploring the town, wondering who would be patronizing the Bear Root Apothecary & Naturopathic Clinic or Elevated Ice Cream & Candy Co. Us, I guess. For ice cream. We climbed the hill above the town where the rich people once lived amidst their churches, back when the lower town was a rowdy place. We even got a view of Mt. Rainier off to the southeast.

  We still had a little gas in our touring tank so the next day I suggested we drive west to the Pacific, then south along the coast to Astoria, Oregon to see some of the things we had missed on the cold and rainy day our cruise boat had stopped in Astoria the previous week. This was my chance to visit Fort Clatsop just outside Astoria.

Pacific Coast 

  Fort Clatsop is where Lewis and Clark and crew spent the winter of 1805-06 before returning to St. Louis. They had spent the previous winter along the Missouri River in central North Dakota. The brutal cold of that winter was nothing compared to the rain, hunger, and sickness they endured for three months on the Columbia. 

  I've visited the site of their first winter camp near Washburn, ND and I really wanted to visit Clatsop, but the rain had put me off during our previous visit to Astoria on the cruise boat.  As we crossed the high bridge over the Columbia back into Oregon, the sun sparkled on the waves. Fort Clatsop is a National Historical Park and I knew there would be an admission fee.  I have one of those cards that get you into all the National Parks for free, but I had forgotten it at home. Damn!

  It was a half hour before closing time when we arrived in the parking lot. OK, I thought, Lewis and Clark probably shivered right here two hundred and some odd years ago. I'm not paying ten bucks to see some reconstructed fort. But Teresa encouraged me to walk up and see what I could see while she stayed in the car and knitted. She promised to bail me out if I got in trouble. Silent as a Clatsop brave, I made my way along the winding path under the giant firs or Sitka spruce or whatever they were.

  The gates of the fort stood open. The place was empty, as though Lewis and Clark had just departed for the fleshpots of the East. I wandered through the rooms inside the fort, took some pics, and headed for the gift shop for a few postcards. Teresa had been right.

No one home

  We spent the night in Astoria and the next day followed the Columbia River up to the Idaho border. We spent the night in Pullman, Washington, home of Washington State University. I was surprised at the size and beauty of the campus spread across the hills. I asked the woman at our motel what the student population was. "About 30,000," she said. "How about Moscow, just across the border in Idaho?" I asked She said, " I remember it this way: Washington State is a college that has a town while Moscow is a town that has a college." Go Wazzu!

  Next day we stocked up on supplies in Coeur d'Arlene, Idaho for the long trek across Montana. In the I days when we were in a hurry, we would have done the drive home in two long days, but now we just say no to long days on the road. We took the time to see a buffalo jump where ancient peoples drove buffalo over a cliff. We took a thirty mile detour to see the site where Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce fought their last battle and surrendered to the US Army. We stopped to look at funny sculptures. We stopped to satisfy our cravings for sweet rolls. We regret nothing.

"I will fight no more forever."