I live in one of the most beautiful parts of the world. Seriously! Port Townsend is a little eclectic town on the tip of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. Logistics keeps the population down. Your options to get to the big city (Seattle) are to take a passenger ferry across Puget Sound or drive all the way down the Hood Canal and back up through Tacoma. Either way, it's a "trip" and not tolerable for most daily commuters. Which is pretty okay with me and the rest of us locals over the age of 30!
Every morning I walk the Larry Scott Memorial Trail, starting from the Port Townsend boat haven and heading towards the pulp mill. Our paper mill gives off a very distinctive aroma that the locals call "money".
When my daughters visit they usually crinkle their noses as it wafts our direction, but I hardly notice it anymore. (It sure beats the smell of I5 traffic on a Friday night!)
The six-mile path follows what used to be an old railroad line. The first 4 miles have been maintained to accommodate wheelchairs, joggers, bicyclists and horses. After that, it gets a bit rough and takes you through wooded back country with only the truly dedicated and hearty athletes.
Okay, so I was passed by a beautiful 65-year-old woman jogger that kept stopping to pick up the snails off the path so they wouldn't get crushed by other trail users ... look, she was fit. I mean really fit!
On the first part of the trail, you follow the water. When the tide goes out, it goes way out! I frequently see beached boats amongst the clam diggers, diving eagles, and blue herons.
There is an eagle couple that lives in a douglas fir tree along the cliff that borders the trail. I feel pretty fortunate to be able to include them in my morning ritual. I don't usually walk with my camera but I was lucky on the morning that I did ... the eagles had captured a meal that was a bit too large for them to carry. It made for a gruesome national geographic moment (I'm a pansy) when I realized what their prize was ... I'd rather not say.
As you can see, I was able to get close to the magnificent birds and was rewarded with several fabulous shots.
In addition to eagles, there are sand pipers, red wing blackbirds, seagulls, crows ... some mornings you can see the deer up on the cliff side. But we have deer everywhere. They gather in lawns, they jump fences, they eat gardens, they cross the street slowly in little herds ...
Port Townsend is just one of those very cool towns where everyone seems to be an artist, carpenter, massage therapist, or photographer, working a temporary job in a restaurant. You know?
It's also very important to wear un-matching handmade clothing, reuse your grocery bags, and have a political opinion branded on the back of your corn-oil burning vehicle with a combination ying-yang-peace symbol etched into the moss embedded rust. You think I'm kidding?
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