Once I had seen Mount St. Helens on Wednesday, the third day after leaving Phoenix, I booked a place to stay. I was lucky. I stayed in a Navy facility north of Everett. I knew Tara wouldn't be home from work until 17:30. So while I was driving north I called her and we agreed to meet Thursday evening. That gave me all day Thursday to drive around. I wanted to go to the Olympic Peninsula and see Port Townsend, Hurricane Ridge, the Hoh Rainforest, and maybe eat some seafood at Port Angeles. I had been at these places before, but once I stayed at Port Angeles and another time at McChord AFB near Tacoma. So on Thursday morning, a beautiful sunny day (why couldn't it have been like this when I was stationed there) I left the Naval facilty in time to miss, hopefully, rush hour traffic. I had to drive all the way to Olympia, a distance of 100 miles or so (the Hood Canal Bridge was closed for maintenance) before I turned west. Once on the Peninsula the slowest guy set the pace. Speed limit was 45mph, slower through the many small communities. Two-lane roads, beautiful scenery but I realized somewhere along this drive that I wouldn't be able to see everything I had planned. To make matters worse, the place was swarming with cops. Town cops, highway patrol, sheriff patrols, all dead set to get their slice of the almighty dollar. And they were resourceful; binoculars, hidden places, pop-up radar etc. The first place I stopped was Port Townsend, located on the northeast corner of the Olympic Peninsula, and itself on a tiny peninsula. Port Townsend is a lovely place, with old, New England style houses, wonderfully landscaped gardens, a deer wandering across the street like it was owning the place, and many tourists. The view in the picture shows Whidbey Island in the middle distance, and Mt. Baker (10,778-ft) about 60 miles distant as the crow flies. Mt. Baker is another 'dormant' volcano. This picture was taken on 21 May 2009. Thank you for viewing, commenting, and any favs, Sig...