Port Angeles, Sequim, and Port Townsend

We descend Hurricane Ridge on the same windy road we came up. The only difference is there’s more traffic as the day has worn on. The line at the park entrance has gotten longer. We avoided this line by purchasing a 7-day pass at the Hoh Rain Forest.

We’ll head east on Highway 101 without re-entering Port Angeles. A quick glance at Port Angeles is all I wanted. Its setting between mountains and water has great possibilities. But I wasn’t drawn to its charm. In fact, twice I was yelled at while driving safely and cautiously. Once by an old man in a truck who wanted more room, and another by a bicyclist on the way up to Hurricane Ridge. Both within a span of 15 minutes. Still, this region is much more than congested downtowns, spruced up waterfronts, and old neighborhoods.

From this point, Highway 101 turns into a major thoroughfare connecting Port Angeles with many smaller towns, most notably Sequim. Two things to keep in mind about Sequim. First, the “e” is

silent. You pronounce it “Squim.” Second, they’re in the rain shadow, an area protected from storms by the Olympic Mountains. Sequim only gets 18 inches of rain annually and has over 300 sunny days a year. Those two items seem to be included in every conversation about Sequim. This I learned 30-plus years ago while in a conversation with someone from Sequim. They won’t let you forget it.

If the Olympic Peninsula were a square, in the upper right corner would be Port Townsend. Some 30 years ago, Curt and I spent a memorable

day here. Much has changed. On this weekend, the downtown sidewalks are full of people like State Street in Santa Barbara. Tall, historic buildings flank both sides of the street and there’s a cosmopolitan air about the place. The atmosphere is festive with open shops, cafes, and an outdoor art show. The compulsion to stop and walk is only halted by a lack of parking. Aaron wants to jump out and walk and I nearly let him open the door and go. Why not.

What other Washington towns can only dream of, Port Townsend has in spades. It too is in the rain shadow with mostly sunny days. Located at the far end of a peninsula its almost surrounded by water. Care has been taken to preserve its many Victorian buildings. I’ve never seen a town so benefited by this one act.

It was all a different story some 30 years ago. But even then, this town had a charm like no other. I thought it was one of the most enchanting places I’d ever been to. I’ve been waiting decades to return here. After so many hardscrabble towns on this trip, seeing the downtown area alive and happy was a boost. The port on the other hand is a shadow of its former self; quiet, sedate, and still. No longer a working port, more like a large parking lot. What was here before was both disturbing and awesome at the same time. No pictures, just memory.

During that time, the logging industry was in full swing, but gasping its last breaths. We’d seen trees being cut, dragged, branches removed, and hauled away on specially built trucks. However, not all of them went to the mill. Many came to Port Townsend to have their cargo loaded onto freighters and shipped off. The port area was clogged with large tankers. We sat and watched a huge freighter being loaded to the gills. Trucks pulled up and a crane removed the logs and loaded them onto the deck of the ship. It was like an assembly line. The accumulated logs reached a good 40 feet above the deck and filled the entire length. Many trucks came along and lined up for this operation. These trucks come in two parts. The back half is like a trailer that can extend short or long depending on the size of the tree. It can be removed and placed on top of the front half; a piggy-back arrangement. Once the logs are unloaded, the trailer end is hoisted on top of the front end of the truck. The truck then drives away and another pulls up.

This is not the first time Curt and I were astounded by the scale of logging taking place in Washington and Canada (Vancouver Island in Canada dwarfed Washington). What shocked us was the ship had Asian writing on it. We were exporting a depleting natural resource to a foreign country. That country I thought was Korea, but someone told me it was Japan. I don’t remember seeing English writing with the name. It’s one of the few times that my memory is so clear that a photograph would be redundant.