Greetings from Washington’s Olympic Peninsula

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Body heat thief

I type this in the dinette, which is in the forward part of the Airstream, beneath the din of our propane-fired furnace while heavy rain, thunder and hail pelts the riveted hull.

Melissa is sleeping cozily under a stack of blankets in the back. Luna the cat is perched atop of her, as she always is. It’s 7:54 AM. I just brewed some coffee and I’m going to try to squeak out a blog update now before my laptop battery fizzles.

Snug as a bug aboard the ferry Spokane

After ferrying the rig on the Washington State Ferry from Edmonds to Kingston (on the Spokane, a huge vessel that served Red Hook on tap), we are now on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington just off of the amazingly beautiful US 101 at a place called Kalaloch, about halfway between Port Angeles and Aberdeen. It’s a state park that’s open all year, nestled along the coast. And I mean right along the coast. There’s our parking spot, then a road, a fence, a cliff, and the water. Spectacular, even in the rain. Maybe even more so in the rain, because the swells in this storm are 20 to 25 feet tall, and I’m not exaggerating. It looks like a washing(ton) machine out there. This time of year is known as ‘Discovery Season’, when campers can simply drive on in, find a spot, and stake their claim over expansive views of the rugged Pacific Ocean. If you want to see what I’m talking about, have a look here:

This form of camping we’re doing is known as ‘boondocking’. No water, no electricity hookups, no on-site sewer hookup, no cable TV. Just you and what you bring in. While it’s nice to stay at full-service campgrounds, boondocking is even more fun. The geek in me likes to see how much battery power we can eek out without firing up our generator. I kinda feel like Scotty from Star Trek. Either that, or the fact that the generator is piled under all kinds of other crap in the bed of the pickup, and I’m too lazy to free it.

Before arriving here, we enjoyed what was our only extended stay in one place since our two days in Montreal back in mid-October. We enjoyed 4 days in the Emerald City – Seattle Washington. Well, let me correct that. Melissa enjoyed four days in Seattle. I enjoyed two days of coast-to-coast airplane rides and two days of unanticipated work-related duties back in Philadelphia. I hope to share more details about what this trip was all about in the coming months. It should be pretty neat. But now, the focus is squarely back on this amazing honeymoon of ours we’ve been privileged to experience.

We’re happy that we got to visit with some good friends while we were in Seattle. Last Monday, before I flew back to Philly, we got to catch a Phillies World Series win (which turned out to be the last one) with my friend Mike Salmon, a Philly transplant. My friend Mike Schlador joined us as well, and It was a quick dinner and a few beers, but it was nice to see them again, despite the fact we saw them a few weeks ago on our wedding day.

Suzanne and Me

After leaving for Philly on Tuesday, Melissa kept busy and spent a lot of time with our friends Mike and Suzanne, and their perfectly adorable daughter Audrey. Suzanne and Melissa browsed boutiques in Ballard and lunched together on Tuesday for the better part of the day. Melissa then browsed the market and hopped around town on Wednesday, and enjoyed a nice dinner with the Schlador’s. Thursday, Melissa successfully got Suzanne knee-deep in an advanced crafting project that required written instructions on how to execute it after we left. Suzanne looked nervous. She’s a smart cookie, she’ll pull it off.

Laszlo, me and Schlador

Heidi and Ryan

Renee and Rachel

What was more amazing was the fact that several of our friends – Renee, Richard and their daughter Rachel; George, Heidi, and their son Ryan; and Suzanne, Mike and little Audrey all took time off from work on Friday morning to join us for breakfast at Mike and Suzanne’s house before we hit the road. It was really, really nice. We wish we could have spent more time with them, but it exemplified how extremely genuine they all are and it was great to see them all again. I miss them.

As the sun gets brighter through the windows of the trailer, I must leave the keyboard and jostle Melissa into consciousness. We have a rainy drive ahead of us today, but the payoff should be a cheese-filled visit to the Tillamook County Creamery Association. We’ll soon be sittin’ pretty in cheddar city. Oh, and I might as well try and keep my quest to end up with the gout alive by finding some dungeness crab somewhere.

Toodles. More videos are on the way, including footage of Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.

US 101 in Washington