Port Townsend Post Office

Today's photos are of the Port Townsend Post Office. I'm there "daily" - Monday through Saturday - to check my box for "hand addressed" mail, usually to be greeted instead by dreaded bills. I love walking into this building every day because it's filled with such history. It was built in 1893 (with terrific cost overruns even back then) as the U.S. Customs House. It is now the oldest federally constructed Post Office in Washington. According to HistoryLink.com, "in 1854, the Treasury Department moved Washington Territory’s Port of Entry into the United States, from Olympia to Port Townsend. Sailing ships usually stopped for at least a few hours, both entering and leaving Puget Sound, to clear customs and await favorable winds and tides for continuing their voyage." But eventually the newer steamships didn't have the sail-dependent ships' limitations and by 1913, the Customs Office was moved to Seattle. This provided a further blow to PT, coupled with the railroad - vital for expanded development - never reaching PT.

It's still a lovely building, now housing the PT Post Office, a small museum & a few private offices as well. My PO box is in the second photo, on the right. I hope you can see the rich woods, marble floors and I believe, the original glass-doored postal boxes, which greet me each day. Unfortunately, there's no way to show you all the friendly postal employees who are assigned to this station.

Today was full - after stopping at the Post Office, we were off to Point Hudson Cafe down by the marina for breakfast. We both admitted that we wouldn't need to eat for another 2-3 days after consuming their HUGE portions, but somehow we managed to eat again later in the evening. From Point Hudson, we were off to see Jeanne, who owns the local interior design shop, and Susie, the incredible barista at 1012 coffee. Next, we headed south to tour Marrowstone Island. It is home to two state parks which are picture perfect. Marrowstone sits across the bay from PT and while you're only a short drive away, it's like being half a world away. The local paper ran a story earlier that Stephanie Meyer, the wildly-successful author of the Twilight series, has quietly lived part-time with her family on Marrowstone Island for a couple of years. While I'm not a Twilight fanatic, I've heard the story of how she Googled the wettest town in the US on which to base her story. I don't believe she'd even been to Forks prior to making it famous. From Marrowstone, we drove over to Discovery Bay Golf Club which sits above yet another section of the water surrounding the peninsula. Quite a setting for a round of golf although I obviously can't vouch for the course's quality. There were pre-teens out playing too which I think is wonderful for them to have a place where they feel they are welcome to play and to learn the etiquette of golf.

But the highlight of the afternoon was an after thought. We stopped at the Jefferson County International Airport to check on the air taxi service from SeaTac. There is a recently-opened aero museum there as well which was spearheaded by a local retired couple who were previously airline employees - a pilot & a flight attendant. But getting out of the car, we were hit with the most delicious smell of burgers & fries from the Spruce Goose Cafe. I'd seen their sandwich board out by the highway each time I'd passed but had no idea what a great find it would be. The taxi service owner told us that it was fairly famous amongst pilots of small planes from California to Alaska. Many will stop at the JCIA to fill up - both their planes & their stomachs. It was a GORGEOUS day and the Spruce Goose's deck, parallel with the landing strip, was packed. We lucked out by getting the last two pieces of their chocolate banana cream pie to go.

Tonight we went to see "Alice in Wonderland" at the Rose and then went to Gallery Walk, which is held the first Saturday of each month. Sam found a photograph that he's having shipped back to Dallas for his new office. From there, we went to Fin's for dinner & watched the luminous ferry setting out in the darkness, taking Port Townsend's Saturday visitors back to Whidbey Island.

Hope your day was filled with what you wanted to do! More local info will be coming tomorrow which I hope will entice you to want to visit PT!