Day 2 - San Juan & Clallam Counties PLUS Twilight

Day 2 (Sunday) found us rising at 5am for a 6am departure from camp in Lynden. Our goal for the day was to make it to Kitsap County. But that was not to be for reasons that will become evident.

County # 5 (San Juan)

San Juan county is the most difficult County seat to reach as it's on an island at the conclusion of a 65 minute ferry ride. We (Andy, Angela & I) rode to Anacortes and dropped our trailers at my daughter's home. We then bought our tickets and found ourselves to the very front of the ferry line for Friday Harbor (that's the ferry rules: motorcycles go first and can bypass cars). Other motorcyclists soon showed up and all were amazed at our planned ride. We rode on out to Friday Harbor, de-boarded the ferry, rode up the hill a few blocks, snapped our photos of another non-descript courthouse, and rode back to the front of the line that was queued up, and reboarded the same ferry. It was a shame to not ride more of San Juan Island, but we're on a mission. We also took the opportunity to use the ferry power to recharge or camera batteries.





County # 6 (Clallam)
Arriving back in Anacortes, we went back to our daughter's house and hooked up the trailers and enjoyed a brief visit with her and her new husband (they had just honeymooned in Hawaii). We also discussed our routing for the next leg and checked on reservations for the Keystone / Pt. Townsend ferry route. None were to be had and we couldn't risk not making the ferry, so we decided to ride further south to Edmonds and take the Kingston ferry as we knew that we could get first priority boarding. So we arrived in Edmonds just in time for a 2:40pm sailing. Surprisingly, the boat was totally full. On the other side we were very surprised that the ferry waiting line was so short. Little did we know what would come next.

At the Hood Canal Floating Bridge, the traffic is parked. Drat, the bridge is open (probably for a nuclear submarine). So we waited for about 15 minutes and the traffic started moving again. We now saw the reason for the lack of ferry waiting traffic: with the bridge open, the traffic was parked for about 7 miles. We continued riding and there was more heavy traffic at Sequim (a lavender festival was ending for the weekend). We chatted on the CB's and decided we would make Port Angeles (Clallam County) our destination for the day so we wouldn't need to just sit in traffic to make it back to Pt. Townsend. It had been a long day. So we easily found the Clallam County Courthouse and it was one of the prettiest we've seen so far:



We then found a room at the Super 8 motel which has wireless internet and then we decided to become "Twilight" tourists. Twilight is a very popular book series about a vampire (Edward) and a high school girl (Bella). In the fictional account, there is a section of the book about the Bella and her friends coming to Port Angeles for Bella to find a prom dress. She ends up getting rescued from some thugs by Edward. We ate at the Bella Italia where she and Edward had their first date which has experienced a dramatic increase in business as a result of being featured in the book. Below are a few pictures of our tourist trip for the day.

The Ferry Kalakala which ran for many years between Port Angeles and Victoria. It's now moored in Tacoma awaiting restoration as a museum piece. Below is a mural depicting it.



Bella's prom dress


Bookstore


Bella Italia


There's even a wine called "Twilight".

How far do we get in day 3, check back.