025 Port Townsend, WA

October 31, 2008 – Friday
Port Townsend, WA

I arrived in Port Townsend yesterday and drove directly to the hostel to find out where it was. The office din’t open until 5pm and it was only about 2, so I found a café which had internet access and hung out for a little while, grabbing some lunch while I was there. I had half of a BLAST sandwich which is a fancy BLT with herbed mayo and slices of avocado. Absolutely delicious! Courtyard Café, was very cute and had delicious coffee. Around 4pm when I finished with lunch, I decided to find a place to have a glass of wine since I had about an hour left until the hostel office opened and I wanted to check out more of the town anyway. With the recommendation from the people Courtyard Café (which closes at 5pm every day), I went to The Fountain which didn’t open until 5pm. After stopping into The Upstage and finding
that they didn’t open until 5 either, I finally found myself at The Public House which was lively and operating! Just like the Courtyard Café, The Public House was very cute with a lot of character. I brought my journal in with me to do some writing and had a wonderful glass of white wine. After writing for a while, it was finally after 5pm so I left to check into the hostel.

I have to admit that I have really enjoyed having a GPS with me to help find my way around the US. When I got into my car to find my way back to the hostel, I came to find that my GPS wasn’t functioning. I turned it off and on a couple of times to no avail and then had the “smart” idea of hitting the reset button. Now what I have is a GPS that will turn on, want me to set all of my preferences, but is unable to load any maps of the US. It’s a really good thing that I pay close attention nowadays when I drive around; I was able to find my way back to the hostel without any trouble. The GPS still isn’t working now and I can’t find my cable to attach it to my computer to see if there’s anything I can do to fix it. Well, this will definitely make everything more of an adventure!

Chris was at the hostel when I arrived and provided me with info on the area, and I met Charlie who has been staying there for a while and will probably stay there a while longer, until he gets bored and wants to move on. I love meeting people like
me! I was the only girl staying there for the evening so I had the womens dorm all to myself. Since I had looked into the area to see what was happening that evening and found some live jazz, I changed into some less ragged clothing, heels and light leather jacket. I rarely get the chance to dress up these days. As soon as I was changed, I went upstairs in the hostel and paid for another evening; I decided I would like to stay in town for a couple of nights before moving on. Also, I found an event that I think I’ll enjoy attending for Halloween! Something about a masquerade ball in a castle?


Anyway, I took off and found my way to the Upstage where I grabbed a spot at the bar (often the best way to meet other people when traveling alone). Next to me was a nice guy named Dean who I started chatting with. Turns out he has been traveling much like myself; he dropped off his son in Chicago, coming from Maine, and then
decided to just keep driving. He took the ferry from Seattle to Port Townsend and found himself in this very cute town at a spectacular hotel named the Palace Hotel. The jazz was very enjoyable, with the theme of Miles Davis music. When it was finished, Dean and I decided to split a spinach and gorgonzola pizza, yummy.

I’ve been finding that I am having a hard time pressing on right now, I really enjoy being in these small cities and exploring; actually I enjoy exploring these more than large cities right now. I think the thing that’s going to get me moving again is the cloudy skies and cold weather. It’s raining today, too; cold and wet. Bleh. Not even good for sight seeing in the national park (however still gorgeous in a way)! Sometimes I wonder if I will get lonely and miss my friends and communities of which I have been a part of. Most of the time what I have found is that I just try to create a bit of a community wherever I am, through the new people who I meet along the way. It requires an interested mind, a curious spirit, to meet people and share yourself as well. A spirit that tells you to find out who these people are, what their stories are; how they ended up in the same place where I find myself. It’s often quite interesting, or can be if you want it to be. The more that I’m on my own, the better I tend to do, meeting people and putting myself out there; and it occurs to me that what I really need to do next is work up to asking people to join me in whatever I’m doing. I should have asked the people at the Courtyard Café to join me for a drink when they were finished with work; who knows what might have happened, maybe they would have said yes and I could probably have learned quite a lot. The other thing that I want to do is create some traveling cards – like business cards, but I’m not really in business right now… So they’ll have my blog on there in case anyone wants to keep in touch after I leave their area.


Apparently, this blog is one of rambling thoughts. I think I have discovered partially what I want to do during my travels. I want to fall in love – with an area, with a place. I want to discover the many different kinds of places there are in the US and then find which works best with who I am and what I want to do. It’s amazing to me how many people don’t do that, check out different areas of the world to find one that gels best with themselves. But I suppose, not everyone is like me. And what is me? Me is finding that out and enjoying the journey quite a bit. What I have been able to admit so far is that I definitely like living at a slower pace, allowing me to truly experience life, observe life around me and see things much more fully for what they really are. I feel as though I have squandered a lot of time away, rushing from place to place and hurrying from event to event. Even in my spare time, I have done very little. I may want to stay in a smaller town for a time, or in a place that is hardly a town which would allow me to do so many more things with my creative self. I need time and space to feel comfortable doing that; being around people and buildings and cities simply distracts me constantly. I’m good at being social, sometimes a bit of a butterfly, but I can’t hold back the other side of me, the side that doesn’t want people around all the time, but instead more earth, nature.

Ok, enough of that for now… The final event of last evening was when I was finally back to the hostel and went back out to my car for my water bottle which I had forgotten. After I found it, I turned around to go back inside and stopped dead in my tracks. A beautiful deer was standing about 15 feet away from me, staring at me. I said “Hey, how’s it goin’?” and continued inside. The deer watched me as I passed, then I did the same with it. When I passed it, before I was back inside, I turned around and watched it meander off across the yard. It was a spectacular end to a great day.

024 Halloween, Flowers, and Washington

October 29, 2008 – Wednesday
Bremerton, WA

Last Monday I finally got around to figuring out what to do for Halloween and bought some materials to construct my costume. Since I decided that I was going to be a flower, I needed to pick up some “flowery” items so that I could create a hat. The thrift stores didn’t have as much as I would have liked in the way of fake flowers, so I ended up at Michael’s where they had some gorgeous red prettiness waiting for me. On the way back home I stopped for happy hour at my local hangout, the Red Dog Depot. I have claimed this as “my spot” and I believe I know most everyone who works there now. It’s nice to be able to have a place where “everyone knows your name…” when you don’t know many people in the area.

Back at the ranch, I spent a couple of hours constructing my costume. With wire, an underhat, some butterflies and the flowers and leaves from Michael’s, I created a lovely headpiece for Halloween. Somehow I ended up not getting a head to toe body shot of the costume, from the stem (trusty brown boots), on up (green dress) to the flower hat, which is not to be forgiven, but the headshot that I ended up with was really pretty darn sweet. Thanks Dennis!

Speaking of Dennis, Tuesday night, after packing my car nicely full of camping gear and everything else I own right now, I drove up to Portland and stayed with my friend Dennis for the night. When I got there, we took some time to catch up, then I changed into costume and had a documented (Dennis and his photos…) makeup application session with bright red lipstick makeup, shimmer and all. Luckily, the weekly Tuesday Blues dance was Halloween themed that week and we attended, in costume. Before the dance, we went to Crush for some dinner and drinks with Karissa and Joshua; they also brought Dennis his costume for the night… Which he changed into (after some prodding) in the photobooth that was right next to us. It isn’t every day that someone gets to pull a superman move!


It was great fun at the dance, since I hadn’t been dancing in months before this time. Cid was up from San Fran and had a great DJ set; it was lovely seeing him again, it’s been too long. I danced my buns off, loved dressing up (Halloween is my favorite holiday) and had a wonderful evening. In the morning before I left town, Dennis and I had brunch at the Tin Shed; a fabulous restaurant in Portland. I highly recommend it.

Finally, it was time to take off for Seattle where I met an old friend, Sara, for dinner at the Coastal Kitchen. They had a new themed menu that evening, based on Brittany, France. It was pretty delicious, but we would have preferred if it had come out in courses rather than on one large platter. Some of the food got cold before we could get to it! Of course, I think that had something to do with the fact that we hadn’t seen each other in something like 5 years and had a ton of juicy stuff to catch up on. After a 3 hour dinner and great company, I took off and drove to the other side of Puget Sound where I found myself a hotel room for the evening. I had wanted to stay at the hostel in Puget Sound, but it was too late in the evening by the time I got there. So, I cheated. The good thing was that I was nice and rested for the rest of my time in WA.