Northwest 2015 (Day 6 of 22): Seattle - Bainbridge Island - Olympic National Park

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Our condo in Seattle

We drove 3 hours north from Portland the previous night and got in after midnight again after having a little trouble finding the place in the dark tucked away off of a side street. The pre-trip plan was to try to stay multiple nights in a single location in order to give the boys the option to go sightseeing with us or not. In reality, they never chose the option to stay home so while it was nice not to have to pack\unpack our stuff each night, not staying nearing our sightseeing destinations meant a lot more time in the car and less time at the destinations.

We exchanged the Malibu for a Maxima

The exchange, the previous night, for our deer battered rental car at Thrifty in Portland went much smoother than expected. They were very quick and super nice. One of the guys went out to get us another car and drove around with a Maxima. He said that it was a premium car, but they wouldn't charge us anything extra.

As of now, hitting that deer, worked out well for us. The Maxima was so much nicer than the Malibu and made a huge difference later in the trip traveling on the mountain roads. It handled very well, had a smooth manual shifter for downshifting in the mountains, and was just a real pleasure to drive.

We still haven't heard anything from Thrifty or our insurance company about the damaged car. At first we were worried about having to pay a big deductible since we didn't get the Thrifty insurance, but after experiencing the difference between the Maxima and the Malibu, it might be worth it or at least close.  

Taking a ferry from downtown Seattle to Bainbridge Island

In Portland, Mount Hood is always looming in the distance. In Seattle, it's Mount Ranier.

Marine Science Center in Poulsbo, a cute little Norwegian themed town

Mora Ice Cream

We tried several flavors and they were all good, but their signature marionberry stood out

We got a Viking Cup and some other goodies at Sluys Bakery for the road 

First Nations

We kept hearing the term "First Nations" on our trip. It's hard to keep it all straight. It's kind of sad to see all the Indian casinos, smoke shops, and fireworks stores everywhere. It seems like every one of them is packed and there's an arms race to make them bigger and bigger with many of them in the midst of expansion projects.

Olympic National Park

After spending some time in Poulsbo, it became apparent that we wouldn't be able to make it to Port Townsend like we had planned if we wanted to get to Olympic National Park before the visitor centers closed. I really hated not getting to see Port Townsend and Astoria.

 

We drove an hour north to the Hurricane Ridge area of the park

We spent a little time checking out Port Angeles and the waterfront

Lavender farm in Sequim

On the ferry back to Seattle from Bainbridge Island

We hustled to catch the 9 pm ferry because there wasn't another ferry until around midnight. We ended up having to wait almost an hour because the ferry was late. We were really looking forward to some food from the ferry cafeteria. Some chili and chowder like we had on the way over sounded really good. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that they stop serving the food by 5 pm or so. Looks like Voodoo donuts and cereal back at the condo.