I tried to put more of the story in the captions this round, especially the latter part of the gallery. Check out Day 3 gallery. Pictured is all the family at my cousin’s house.

We actually began the day by venturing further north from Port Townsend to Fort Worden, the very northern tip of the Olympic Peninsula. It was really overcast, but we got to see the lighthouse and walk around the beach. Our cousins said if we’d been up there on a Saturday evening, we would have seen all the cruiseliners passing through. We bottled some sand from here, since it’s unique at every place. The lighthouse was closed to tours, but from reading the sign, it seems it’s nearly fully automated.

After walking around a bit, we headed back through Port Townsend and then on to Port Ludlow where my cousins live. They were having a brunch at their house. It was so lovely of them to have so many meals for all of us that came out for the wedding. Their house was so nice with a fantastic view. They told us everyone who retires to FL is insane, and that this was the closest thing to paradise they’d ever experienced. I was believing it.

We had to leave there to get on the road soon in order to beat rush hour in Seattle. I talked my mom in to a 2 mi side venture to Port Gamble. We’d driven by the edge of it soon after getting off the ferry day 1, but obviously, since we were so late, there was no time to stop. Well, mom & sis were glad I made them go back. They found a truffle shop, while I got camera happy. It was a quaint little town. They had a barbecue going in front of the general store. Couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day for photos. Definitely check out that part of the gallery.

We decided to take the land route to Seattle, rather than using the ferry to cut across aka avoiding anymore ferry hell. It was a beautiful drive, and it only took just under 2 hours. We passed a navy port, and got a quick glance at Tacoma. We made it to our hotel, which was on the edge of UW (u-dub) campus, nearly trouble free. We were just in time for the complimentary afternoon hor’deurves. mmm. We picked this hotel mainly because they had a shuttle that would take us pretty much anywhere around town. It wasn’t until we were walking around downtown and saw that parking started at $9 for the first hour that we realized what a big money-saver that decision was.

We decided to check out the Space Needle that evening. We got there right at sunset, and it was quite a breathtaking view of the city and water. We stayed up there for quite awhile. The tour guide had some interesting things to say about what we were seeing. More of those details are in the gallery captions.

We walked around the Seattle Center area til late in the evening. It was lovely. I wanted to take photos of a trombone player playing under a street lamp, but I decided it was best to avoid the homeless people, which there were a lot of. Cost of living was pretty scary high. While gas was 3.59 in IN, it was 3.81 in Seattle.

The shuttle didn’t run late enough to pick us up, so we had to take a bus back to campus. We made it, but we did a lot of walking since we weren’t exactly sure which stop would be best for us at the end and the driver wasn’t exactly the most approachable person. It turned out alright. We did get to see a man talking to a banana…apparently he confused it with his cellphone at some point. My mom was freaked throughout the bus ride by all the “creepy people.” I didn’t find them that creepy, but some were definitely a little off. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this guy telling this girl his life story. It seemed it was a first or second date. The guy’s life was pretty messed up, and he was practically broadcasting it to the entire bus. I wish I could remember the one thing he said that triggered my “omg, Ican’t believe he just said that.” oh well.

Day 4 & 5 are coming…writing all this up takes longer than I anticipated, so I gotta spread it out. Day 5 will be a good one :)