Port Angeles

[nibot]

Thor Town Hostel, Port Angeles, WA. March 15, 2006.

I am tired at the end of a long day, mostly a long day of driving. Spectacular driving, though! We grabbed a rental car just a block from squarkz's house, grabbed some piroshky for breakfast, and then hit the ferry out into Puget Sound. My god! The scenery here is incredible. It's like Stockholm or something. We drove and drove up around Olympic National Park and are now perched just to the north of it in a little town called Port Angeles, in an eccentric little hostel called Thor Town.

Thor Town is a little red house that looks like a barn. A couple lives here in one of the rooms with their four year old daughter. The next bedroom is a rented out as a private room and the other one is the bunk room with five bunks. Carl (the dad) and Pluma (the daughter) made a chocolate cake earlier, for her birthday. Stefanos and I cooked ourselves some mushrooms and pasta and broccoli for dinner. We're drinking Washington white wine. Right now Stefanos is explaining wave-particle duality to our enigmatic roommate.

I think it is worth visiting Seattle even only for the Piroshky. Piroshky on Broadway, specifically.

I just got a phone message from four... very garbled, but it seems to say that he's on a freight train somewhere in Virginia!!

I am looking forward to doing some hiking tomorrow in the Olympic National Park. Hot springs! Rainforest! Then I think we may high-tail it to Portland, a drive of at least six hours. Will probably arrive there quite late. I'm looking forward to seeing Jeff B from Wilde who is in law school there and with whom we will be staying.

I spent the drive here fantasizing about doing pretty much the same trip, but hitchhiking. It would be so grand. Being in such amazing territory reminds me how wide and amazing the world is. There are so many places to explore! We could spend weeks backpacking and hitchhiking through Washington state. We could thumb it up to British Columbia, down all the way through California, through Baja again, down through the heart of Mexico, over weeks or a month or a year. Spend time in one place, spend time moving. I wish the girl were here, we didn't have any time constraints, we didn't have a car. Travel is a psychologically strange thing. It's best when you can look inward and go tumbling along.

Comments

[wealhtheow.livejournal.com]

It's under 4 hours from Seattle to Portland, but from the Peninsula it'll take longer. I recommend 101, which takes much longer, but is far, far more scenic. You follow it, cross the Columbia at Longview, and take 30 East into Portland. Then, you call me!