Day 111 - Indianola to Heart O' the Hills, Olympic National Park 9/8

Wooden Boats, On The Water

On this rainy morning we were off early To Port Townsend again, this time for the wooden boat show. After a bit of a parking kerfluffle, we parked at the stadium, just a block from the show.

As we were still a bit early, Ellen and I stopped for breakfast just around the corner at the Courtyard Cafe. As I was busily trying to find a place to eat on my phone, Ellen had already seen this place as we drive by. It is a comfrtable, warm, quiet place with good breakfast offerings. We had scones and coffee. Both were good. The more traditional breakfasts coming out of the kitchen looked mighty good as well.

Thoroughly stuffed, we were off to the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Show, one of the country's best known. There were a large number of boats on display both on land and at the docks. Definitely a different style of wooden boat than we see in the northeast. The general impression is that the local designs are chubbier than eastern lines. There were quite a  few on shore vendor tents and lots of food. We had decent Texas style BBQ for lunch. 

We only had rain during our morning drive in and it stopped by the time we finished breakfast. After that it was a gray and foggy day, which made for a picturesque background to the show and the harbor.

The show was interesting but I wasn't as wowed as I'd hoped to be. There weren't any knock-your-socks-off boats. There were some very nice small rowing boats scattered around the docks, but here were also quite a few really odd boats.

The highlight for me was chatting with Brion Toss, a world-renowned rigger who has his shop right on the docks. The lowlight was having a hammock collapse as I was trying it out...just as the vendor was attempting to sell it to me. Nothing broken, just a sore butt. All that padding is good for something. He didn't make the sale.

After the show, we bid farewell to Harry and Sally. They were going back to stay with Sally's sister in Indianola and we were moving on to Olympic National Park.

It was an uneventful drive down the peninsula to Port Angeles, where we stopped at the Park Visitor Center. From there it was a short drive up Hurricane Ridge Road to the actual park entrance and the Heat O' The Hills campground. After making a pass through all the loops, we found an almost flat open site in a heavily-forested campground. Feeling lucky to find a decent site of a Friday night, we had dinner and called it a day.