Van Trek September-1 2013

After leaving Vancouver, we drove back down toward Seattle but turned west at Burlington, taking highway 20 down to Whidbey Island. Our first stop was Deception Pass. As you can see from the GPS, early pioneers thought it was a pass, but it turned out to be two peninsulas and an island.

Flat looks out from the island toward the second bridge.

Beautiful country—this is looking out over the first bridge.

And this is looking over the second. The boats were having a great time that day.

A view of the second bridge. There's a pedestrian walkway that takes you under the bridge because of the heavy traffic.

Beaches on the Whidby Island side

We drove south on the island, stopping at Coupeville for a letterbox. All these buildings are historic. Each has a brass plate telling what its original use was.

We also saw this long canoe (on the bottom).

Oh dear, Andrew's following us again—spotted this car in Coupeville.

and at the ferry too!

We fixed supper while waiting for the ferry to Port Townsend. There were two picnic tables near the ferry docks.

Here comes the ferry! We missed the 6 pm one by a few minutes, but that gave us time to eat. This is the 7:30 ferry.

Oh my, Andrew's the first one off the ferry!

We pulled in line behind a truck carrying Dungeness crab traps.

Sunset over the water while on the ferry

Approaching Port Townsend

Looking out at the harbor the next morning (We camped on the street).

Although it was raining, we took a walk around town anyway.

We decided not to stay in Port Townsend, because of the weather, and thought we'd skip going around the Olympic peninsula again, since Steve and Marie had shown us the highlights already. So we headed down the Eastern side of the peninsula on Hwy 101, which we would follow for many days. We crossed over to Aberdeen and picked up the other side of the loop, stopping at a county park for supper. We saw this and many other piles of oyster shells, which were being used for landfill!

We camped in a church parking lot at Ilwaco, and the next morning we saw these birds along a pier in the park where we ate breakfast.

We also watched this doe and her fawn eating their breakfast, crossing back and forth over the road without incident.