I'm at a little town called Chemacum about 15 miles from Pt. Townsend. I'm following a valley with ~200 ft hills on either side, so its pretty easy riding. Once at Pt. Townsend, I take the ferry to Whidbey Island and head north to Deception Pass. Over a bridge and I'm back on the mainland where I pick up the Skagit River. After the Cascades I leave the river and cross both Rainy Pass (4,855') and Washington Pass (5,477 ft). Not too bad, considering there are some 9,000' mountains nearby. I'm looking forward to the ride down!
2022: My daughters currently live in Seattle, and I flew out to visit over Thanksgiving. My sister and husband were renting a house in Port Townsend, so we all converged there for Thanksgiving dinner. Hannah and I drove up together and I remembered writing about Chemacum so I was curious what I would remember. Not much. Small town. Spelled Chimacum. It has the Chimacum Cafe, a tired white building and a newer Mexican restaurant on the way out. So, I must have stopped at the cafe.
I must not have bothered to go past the Port Townsend ferry terminal, it turns out that just beyond is a substantial downtown dating back to Victorian days when several communities were vying to be a significant port for the area. That dream ended when the train tracks went to Seattle instead. However, the architecture from those days remains intact and the area is doing pretty well today.
2024: Oh! I did visit downtown - I have a 35 mm slide to prove it. It is one of the 60% that didn't make it into my slide show. It seemed like an awfully long time to hang around the ferry terminal, it's nice to see that I didn't! On the other hand, it's a 50 year-old memory that I managed to forget. I'll be picking through the other 300 slides looking for others that are more important now than they were when I was creating something to show friends and coworkers.
1330
I'm now at Oak Harbor, the largest town on Whidbey Island. The ferry ride was quite uneventful, which was a bit disappointing because it had run aground earlier today due to an inexperienced skipper and lower than normal tides. The island is pretty easy riding of the rolling hill variety and consists mostly of farms and forests.
I guess that by tonight I'll be east of Sedro Woolley, which will be the last town big enough to be in red on the map for 40 miles, then none for another 83 miles.
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Written 2024 June 8, last updated 2024 June 8.