4th of July in Port Townsend

Ferry boat ride from Edmonds to Kinston

Our first full day in Seattle was the 4th of July and as such Katie would not be able to get the keys to her apartment until Friday so we needed something to do for the day. As it turns out, Katie's very close friend Jamie, from her time at the University of Rochester, now lives in Port Townsend. Katie made arrangements for us to spend the day with her.  Amy and I had the opportunity to get to know Jamie quite well the summer Katie graduated from the U of R because Jamie spent that summer in Rochester working and came to our house many times to visit. She became a sort of surrogate daughter during that summer and we were looking forward to seeing her as much as Katie.

Kettle Corn booth a the Kingston 4th of July Festival

After breakfast we headed to Edmonds, about 10 miles north of our hotel, to catch a ferry across Puget Sound to the town of Kingston.  This time on the ferry allows me to claim virtually all modes of transportation for this trip once I take a plane back to Rochester (see my second posting - Train? What Train?).  We landed in Kingston about an hour before Jamie could pick us up but the holiday made it easy to figure out what to do as the town of Kingston was having a little celebration with arts and crafts booths just off the ferry landing.  We browsed the booths and bought a bag of freshly made Kettle Corn and we all agreed that this was the only way to go for Kettle Corn.
Jamie eventually picked us up and after hugs all around we drove from Kingston to Port Townsend and took a long walking tour of the town with a stop for lunch at Sirens Pub overlooking Puget Sound.  I had a Salmon sandwich and a locally brewed Scotch Ale.  Very yummy.  Jamie has a very unique job in Port Townsend that keeps her involved in marine animal activity in the area and after lunch she showed us an elephant seal that had decided to use the local downtown shoreline to do his molting.  She explained to us why the elephant seal needs to do this and what some of the theories are about why this particular young male decided to hang out in town while molting.

Katie and Jamie outside Jamie's work place.

After checking out the mischievous elephant seal we walked the shoreline all the way to the Port Townsend Marine Science Center where Jamie works.  This non-profit facility serves as a research support and educational center for the marine life in and around the sound.  As best I remember from her description is that their primary purpose is education but also server as a means for gathering experimental data for research projects by using volunteers to help gather the data.  Part of the educational initiatives that the center is involved in is what is best described as a marine petting zoo or as they like to call it, touch tanks.  What this is is a bunch of tanks containing a variety of ocean invertebrates.  We were given a special guided tour of this facility and Jamie was able to get my normally very squeamish daughter to touch all sorts of weird and slimy ocean critters.

Point Wilson Lighthose

Jamie had to leave us for a couple of hours to go pick up her boyfriend and we took the opportunity to walk further out on the peninsula to the Point Wilson lighthouse for some picture taking - my first Pacific coast lighthouse!  We then walked back into downtown Port Townsend and waited for Jamie and her boyfriend, Larry, to return and join us for dinner.  On our way back to Kingston to catch the ferry back to Edmonds and our hotel, Jamie took us to "the end of the earth".  This is a short little path that ends at the top of a bluff that gives the appearance of the earth just ending.  We missed the 8:20 ferry by just a few minutes and had to hang out, once again, at the ferry terminal in Kingston.

End of the world.

Lucky for us the party was still going strong at the little park near the ferry and we were entertained until the 9:40 ferry left and we were able to make our way back to crash after another long and eventful day.  I'm going to need a vacation when I get home just to catch up on sleep and rest!