Today we had a monster travel day. It wasn’t the distance so much as the route that made the day long. We started out by packing up all our stuff and hooking up our trailer in Concrete. We must be like the Empire in The Empire Strikes Back – we discarded our trash and then took off. WA-20 took us down the Skagit River, through Sedro Woolley and Burlington, before emerging on the other side. We crossed the Swinomish Channel and drove onto Fidalgo Island. In Anacortes, we turned south and headed across Deception Pass onto Whidbey Island. About and hour later, we turned off the main highway at Coupeville and took a short drive to the Port Townsend Ferry Terminal.

We have used this ferry before but every time we arrive, the procedure is a little different. Like the last time we lined up for the ferry, we pulled behind a few vehicles on the right shoulder of the road outside the ferry terminal considerably before our reserved crossing time. This time, however, there was a rotund Washington State Ferries employee with a big head and a walkie-talkie standing in the road. He directed us to pull up to where he was standing so he could speak with us. The state website states that those wishing to cross Puget Sound to the Olympic Peninsula on the ferry must arrive not less than 45 minutes early so the benefits of queuing up can be fully appreciated. The guy with the big head told us that we had arrived too early (about 45 minutes) and, if we didn’t pull out of line and go elsewhere, we would go on standby and sacrifice our 3:30 PM slot. We could not grasp his reasoning but figured anything else inside the guy’s head would make it pop so we pulled past the terminal and parked for a while at a boat launching ramp nearby.

Peggy seized this opportunity to whip up a tasty lunch which we devoured. Then we drove the wrong way past the terminal again, then a mile up the road and found a place to turn our big rig around to head back in the right direction. We then pulled into the roadside queue where we were greeted by a much less ugly ferry employee who told us to shut it down and we would be installed in the boarding lane shortly.

Forty-five minutes later, we drove onto the car ferry and off on our short duration crossing of the Sound. There were lots of dolphins (or porpoises?) swimming around in the strait and we hung out at the very front of the car deck to ogle them as they scampered away from the looming ferry. About 25 minutes later, we were disembarking into the Port Townsend ferry terminal and back onto our road route. The road south from Port Townsend (still WA-20) is skinny, curvy and pretty high speed for an old codger like me because I seemed to always have some furious youngster right up my trumpet almost all the way to US-101. At 101, we turned back north and did some more squiggly racetrack to the town of Sequim. Despite the plain spelling, everyone around here pronounces the name as Skwim.

One more skinny, twisty side road of about 5 miles and we pulled into a place called the Diamond Point Resort. We were now on the very edge of the continent. It is pretty close to the Strait of Juan de Fuca but you can’t see it from the park. Getting into the park was a challenge because: A) Our GPS was completely befuddled in the tall trees and hills and B) The park is obscured from the road. Thanks to Peggy and her patience, we eventually pulled up the gravel driveway to the office.

Things sort of went to shit after that. I must have been more stressed out then normal because it seemed I was almost completely unable to get our trailer into the space we had been assigned. Soon, many park denizens were helping, all pointing in different directions and issuing conflicting advice. After numerous changes of direction, only limited cursing, considerable befuddlement and only one car needing to be moved, we backed our monster trailer into the correct orientation.

This park has full hookups, a staff more than willing to offer tenants conflicting trailer backing directions, WiFi and cable TV. I believe we could use our satellite antenna here but we selected cable for this stay.

We didn’t cover many miles today but from starting our routine in Concrete to being set up in Sequim took eight hours. That’s a long day for me and I will endeavor to assure it never is that long and miserable again.

See some pix. Click the link. https://photos.app.goo.gl/UpAwK27ruGKV6qpo9