Port Townsend-Washington's Victorian Seaport

Port Townsend is a beautiful place. I've been there several times over the past 25 years although not recently. I never get tired of its charm. It has a great downtown with neat shops.

One of the highlights of the trip was spending two nights on Fort Worden's Officer's Row. "An Officer and a Gentleman" was one of my favorite movies and it was filmed at Fort Worden. I love going there and looking at the places that they filmed the movie. I've also always wondered what the Officer's Row housing was like. Before going, I joked with Sherrill that it probably was going to be like staying with her at her home at Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne which was built during the same time period--around 1904. Imagine my surprise when I found that the house we stayed in was the exact same layout as Sherrill's house was--down to the fireplaces, steam registers with pie warmers, and cabinets. The army must have had a standard blueprint for building these houses during that time. It was like deja vu staying there.

Bill and I ended up going to different museums there. Bill went to the Coast Artillery museum. I had been there before a couple times so I didn't necessarily feel the need to go plus we didn't have much time before they closed. I went to the commanding officer's quarters museum which was set up like it would have been in 1904 when it was built. We also took walks around the post to see the cemetery, Alexander's Castle and the batteries that used to have the guns to protect Puget Sound from any attacks by sea.

One of the activities that our flight leaders planned was an airplane contest to see how far we could fly little airplanes. It was fun watching the guys. They were like little kids flying their airplanes--even long after the contest was over.

Some of the other things we did in Port Townsend were go to an air museum in which all the aircraft were restored by teenagers, tour a creamery that makes cheese, and go on a dinner cruise. Unfortunately we didn't see any orca whales but we did see a whole bunch of seals on a beach.

It was a fun couple of days.