From Seattle via Whidbey Island to the Olympic Peninsula

Monday, 18.06. Seattle - Whidbey Island - Port Angeles (175 miles)

Shortly after 5 we are both awake and leave the hotel in the north at 8.00am. First stop is in Tulalip, about 60km north of Seattle. We take the country road and stop at a supermarket to stock up on groceries. A nice, big outlet awaits us. The shops are slowly opening as we are already there. After four hours (!!) we are exhausted, the credit cards are glowing and the bags in the trunk have to be pressed so that the hatch closes. Meanwhile, the rain has stopped. But it's not warm.

We continue north and cross Skagit Island to Whidbey Island. The landscape strongly reminds us of Germany, with mixed forests, meadows and lakes. On our right (eastern) side we suspect mountains, but we don't see them clearly. We catch a beautiful view of the Deception Pass Bridge and the turquoise water below.

Deception Pass is a strait that separates Whidbey Island from Fidalgo Island. It connects the Skagit Bay belonging to the Puget Sound with the Juan de Fuca Strait.

We drive over the high bridge and continue to Coupeville on Whidbey Island, briefly walk up and down the picturesque main street and go to the Ebey's Landing pier, which is a historic landmark.

Coupeville apparently has Dutch founding fathers, we see quite a few Dutch names and references, although the name of the town suggests French immigrants.

Shortly after 5 p.m. we are at the ferry after driving through a wide marshland. We are getting very tired now. It is almost 3 a.m. in Germany, but that shouldn't bother us here - but we are not quite used to the 9-hour time difference yet.

The ferry ride takes an hour, taking us south to the Olympic Peninsula. The journey is not very spectacular, but it's freezing cold. The wind is blowing and it's only 12 degrees anyway, and after a short sun interlude in the afternoon, it's now completely cloudy and looks very rainy in the mountains.

Port Townsend

We drive through Port Townsend, which has some very nice facades from the 19th century. But our destination is Port Angeles, where we arrive at 8 p.m. Quickly inspect the purchases from this morning and go to "Downtown", where we have a clam chowder with a view of the water - this time, like in San Francisco years ago, in a bread bowl. The restaurant offers an incredible selection of local draught beers and the waitress brings us several tasting glasses to try!

While we can see Vancouver Island in the distance, the sun sets, which has made an effort to come out of the clouds over the water again, and shines on the sky.

We are pretty tired at 9.30 p.m. in the hotel. The room is quiet and we can sleep with the window open. A beautiful day because I bought so many beautiful new things and we saw quite a few nice places.