August 15, 2025

On a last minute whim, Elliot and I decided to explore the Olympic Peninsula and Oregon/Washington coastline. The Pacific Northwest is one of the areas I have visited the most over my life. For work, I travelled to Seattle for decades and still do, but for fun, it has held a special place since first visiting as a teenager. We had an amazing trip in 2016 as a family and various small trips in between.

Elliott and I started yesterday in Seattle. I was already on the west coast, so we met up in at SeaTac and snagged a rental car.

The rental car was a production – a car that would not be comfortable, another car that was missing from its space and finally a giant SUV – off roading in luxury may be in our future.

Today was mainly a day of work for me but we did wake to lovely and dreary view…a very Seattle to start.

Elliott explored Seattle – Space Needle, Pikes Place, Monorail, and more. Apparent the Experience the Music Project (Paul Allen’s passion project) is not the Museum of Pop Culture (MoPop) – I had missed that memo.

After a quick lunch of dumplings, Dan Dan noodles and more at Dough Zone near the office we were off…first stop the ferry to Bainbridge Island.

The ride was nice…and we made it to Port Townsend. We checked in at the Manresa Castle Hotel. The hotel was charming and comfortable – while the website contains a history, it is not until you get here that they share the many “unverified” incidents that have led to ghosts…I feel like we checked a box for adventure that the Hyatt in Seattle did not.

Heading to the Port Townsend waterfront jogged memories of our last time herein 2016 as we passed a stores and coffee shop shops we had visited. The water front was charming and still rainy but we got dinner over looking the water at Quenche and then turned in.

We will see what adventures tomorrow holds but that is the start!