We finally arrived in Chimacum, Washington at 11am on Nov. 28th only to find the office closed and a note directing us to find a temporary site until they opened in the morning. With temperatures in the 30s, piles of plowed snow and threatening clouds, we were very happy to find a spot with electric hookup to run our heaters. Where were we you say? Chimacum is located on the Olympic Peninsula just 9 miles south of Port Townsend. Port Townsend, back in the late 1800’s, advertised itself as “destined to become the largest shipping port on the west coast of North America”. It missed the mark somewhat, but boasts an excellent example of a preserved Victorian Seaport, really a very charming place to visit.

Port Townsend Waterfront

The Cascades from Port Townsend Marine Sciences Center

We are staying at the Evergreen COHO SKP RV Park. The SKP designates it as part of the Escapees Co-op Park Network, of which we are members, and it isn’t as bad as the parking lot we envisioned it to be when looking ahead using Google Earth.  We’re surrounded by forest out of which 43 acres was clear cut to make room for the campground. On our first Sunday (pre-checkin) we had no cable TV or internet amenities, so we played Racko (Wendy kicked Warren’s butt) went to bed early and slept really well. Wen found the exercise room in the morning and then we went to the office to find our permanent space for the next two months. Everything was going well until we found out NOBODY has cable TV and internet access is available only by dragging your laptop to the clubhouse. This is taking the pioneering and exploring America thing a little too far!

I did find out that our internal TV antenna does work for a few network channels. We can still get Wheel of Fortune, thank God.  The big problem is the internet. Trying to run several businesses and stay in touch with family and friends makes internet access MANDATORY when you’re on the road. Not ones to give up easily, this became a challenge. We realize that this is a big part of our journey: Things don’t work, or they break, and you have to put on your thinking cap to figure it out or reinvent it. This is just the sort of challenge that is frustrating but also very rewarding. We’re feeling more like pioneers everyday! Needless to say, the internet problem was solved, it wasn’t easy and we aren’t telling how, at least not in print. Maybe for a fee….

We have traveled the 9 miles or so to Port Townsend several times. Our first day was a quick trip to explore the area and see if we could find gelato. Italian Ice was as close as we got and that dog won’t hunt!  The trip was fruitful in another way since we found a small variety store that had just what we needed, new shearling wool moccasins for Warren. His old ones were so worn out they were more like ice skates than slippers. He’d been slipping and sliding all the way up here. Tuesday’s trip found us at the DOL (Dept. of Licensing) to get our WA state driver’s licenses. Wendy finally got a picture that looks like her.  We are now official residents. We attempted to get the truck and rig registered in WA but are missing some documents (which are on their way). We ended our trip at Safeway where we bought enough to restock the rig. We will now be eating in…especially if the weather continues as it has. We keep hearing that the coldest winter ever is upon us!  Looks like we picked the wrong time to go north for the winter!  We’re sure to get plenty of pioneering in at this rate!

The Olympic Mountain Range (right next door!)

We discovered a few other places in the last couple of days. Port Hadlock is literally right next door to Chimacum, and it has a very nice city dock. Especially nice because we are able to hang our crab pot off of it since the season just opened. We did just that on Friday just before lunch and got rewarded with 2 nice keeper Dungeness crabs when we pulled it just 3 hours later. Needless to say we “gave it a rebait” and set it back overnight. Check back for more crabbing reports!

At LAST! Crab! This became the crab pizza below!

Fast becoming my SECOND favorite Italian food - Crab Pizza!

Oh yeah, here’s Tippy!