Continuing our island hoping, we took the Washington State Ferry from Lopez Island to Anacortes on Fidalgo Island. The day’s order was for a long series of steeply rolling hills through some beautiful forested country of lakes, firs, cedars and moss covered maples. The highlight was crossing the bridge at Deception Pass over to Whidbey Island. I suffered from vertigo looking down into the swirling chasm below; beautiful & dangerous.

There is a large US navel air base at Oak Harbour,  it was breathtaking, a little disconcerting and quite deafening to watch the pilots practice low level flying over our heads!  We took the path less traveled out along Penn Cove Rd past the mussel farms to Couperville, a quaint historical fishing and farming town. Then out across the flatlands of green pastures, double story old style farm houses and big red barns to Fort Cassy State Park on Puget Sound, where we paid $12.00 for our Hiker Biker campsite. Pilots from the air school continued a series of low level runs above our campsite until 9.30 pm. “The price of Freedom” one camper said. Betty the camp caretaker helped us spot bald and golden eagles in the trees “One just took a fish” said Betty excitedly.

Waiting for the Port Townsend ferry we killed time at the Keystone Cafe chatting with a couple of Alaskan fishermen; well traveled and knowledgeable fellas. Our last Washington State Ferry ride ($4.00 plus $1.00 each for the bicycles) took us across the point to historic Port Townsend.

It was cold, teeth chattering bone shakingly cold, even though we were rugged up, the chilly wind found a way in. Instead of the famed tailwind all along the coast, we had a nasty bitter headwind. Seeing the snow on Mount Olympus and Mount Washington, we expected it to snow any minute, instead we had rain and sleet.

We pushed on to Quilcene, oyster capital of the world and toyed with the idea of staying at Jefferson County Park. However, after a fine lunch of clam chowder and deep fried oysters, with renewed strength we tackled the climb up and over Mt Walker then down to Dosewallips State Park alongside the Hood Canal where we kept warm inside our tent.