Farther west

After Rockport, we went a short way to Anacortes, WA to the Fidalgo Bay Resort, a very nice campground with half of the sites right on the water.  As we were making our reservations last spring, we were unable to get a waterfront site for the entire 5 days we planned to be there, so we compromised, staying on a site in the back of the park for 2 nights then moving to a prime waterfront site for the remaining 3 nights.  We had stayed at this park before when we were enroute to Alaska in 2014.  We didn't have much planned for this area, wanted to run a couple errands, chill out, and see if we couldn't find a bunch of fresh seafood.

First thing we found out was the sites on the non waterfront side of the park are almost humorously narrow.  When we pulled in I think we may have bumped our neighbors who were sitting in their own postage stamp sized sitting area, and when we hooked up, we got to know them quite well as we had to walk right through their space:(  We had to take turns with each coach on our sides as to who would  get to put their awning out.  We were so close at cocktail hour we almost intermingled our conversations with all three pairs of us.  Anyway to say the least we will not stay in that part of the park again.  Then we moved over to the waterfront, and even though generally they would be considered narrow, in comparison it felt like we were on our own private acre:)  Nonetheless the view made it worthwhile, fantastic!

Nice, huh?

 We admit we don't know a lot about the Pacific Northwest, so it was very interesting to see people out in front poking around in the sand at low tide, the water would move off perhaps 100 yards or so from what you see in the picture, and then when the tide was in, they'd jump in their boats and roar way out, maybe a mile or so, fiddle around and then roar back, then repeat??  Well, it turns out, on our last day we talked to a gentleman that spent most of his life in the area and he told us first of all the clamming right on our beach was phenomenal, so that explained the folks "poking" around, and the crabbing was fantastic as well.  They'd run out to deeper water, 15-30', there's a 13' foot tide here, drop in the crab traps, wait an hour or so and go get usually 10-12 crabs in each pot!  And mostly Dungeness which are delicious.  So one more thing to file away in our brains for next time.

We ran up to a lovely town, Bellingham, to go to REI to see about exchanging my new walking shoes that I'm having issues with, and to walk around and see the sights, especially in the historic section of Fairhaven, which was very nice.  We then took a scenic drive back the beautiful Chuckanut Drive along the cliffside to Anacortes.  We finally found a nice fresh produce stand and got some good veggies, we have seen tons of fruit stands all over the area, but no vegetables.  The campground told us of a great seafood place where we actually ended up going 3 times to buy fresh fish to cook for dinner, king salmon, halibut, halibut again:), and even got some spot prawns to try, delish!  The campground is also right on a nice paved walking/biking path, so we were able to enjoy our daily walks.

So our next destination was Salt Creek Campground to the west of Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula, now from Anacortes there are several routes available to you.  Around and through Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia to the tune of 280 miles, or down onto Whidbey Island to Coupeville, and onto the Coupleville-Port Townsend ferry for a distance of 103 miles, hmmm.  As you know we are ferry experts from our trips to Alaska, and have always been very impressed with their careful handling of our coach, so we figured we would go look and see the operation of the ferry and figure out our routing.  Even with the big tides on this route, they run 18 ferries a day, it's only 5 miles across.  So down Whidbey Island we go across the Deception Pass Bridge, which is quite a bridge, 180' over the swirling tide driven water.

The bridge

The view from the bridge is spectacular!

We got to the ferry dock and watched a ferry arrive, discharge its vehicles, load back up, and depart, and the more we watched we saw there was no adjustment to the ramps, and it looked pretty steep, and since they are on such a tight schedule, there is no screwing around, and it would be over $100 for us to cross, and........  We decided not to do the ferry and did the 280 miles around instead, a nice ride as it turned out, out of most of the city traffic, and we got to come up along the beautiful Hood Canal.  Took about the same time when you consider the early arrival at the ferry and the 45 minute ride across, at least that's what we told each other:)

So now we are at an interesting campground, Salt Creek, west of Port Angeles with a killer view of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, a main shipping channel for Seattle and other ports.

Our view right out our dirty windshield:)