Port Angeles to Chimacum to Bothell, WA

When we left Salt Creek Recreation Area near Port Angeles, we were planning a short drive of only about 1½ hours to the Escapees Evergreen Coho Park in Chimacum, WA. Escapees parks do not accept reservations and are first come, first served. The Escapees campgrounds all have a dry camp area where you can stay until a full-hookup site opens up; but since we had just spent a week without sewer hookup, we desperately needed to do laundry. Therefore, we really wanted a full hookup site.

We called the Escapees park just before we pulled out, and it looked like we might not get into a full-hookup site because they only knew about one site that was going to open up and someone else had called earlier and was already on their way to claim that site. We called another campground a little farther down the road who said they had one open site; but when we got there, our motor home barely fit into the site, and there was no way we were going to get satellite. We called several other campgrounds, and no one had a site open even though it was only 11:00 AM on a Monday no less.

As much as we dislike being tied down by reservations, we hate being left with no place to stay even more. That's the reason we usually make reservations anytime we are in tourist areas during the summer, in a snowbird area in winter, or when we are planning to stay in a state park or Corps of Engineers campground on a weekend. We made an exception this time to give our schedule a little flexibility, and because we had the Escapees dry camp area as a backup.

So we went to Plan B and backtracked to the Escapees park figuring we would have to take a dry-camp site and use the campground laundry, but much to our surprise, someone left unexpectedly. We were gratified to get a full-hookup site after all.  :-)

Escapees Evergreen Coho Park is a co-op that has has a small camping area for transients. The camping area has full hookups (30 amp electric) plus cable. The roads are paved and the sites are all gravel. The gravel is fresh and clean, and there is plenty of it. The campground is nice and quiet with no road noise and no trains. The photo below shows our site at Escapees Evergreen Coho Park.



We spent two days at the Escapees park chilling out and catching up on laundry. We didn't have any sightseeing plans, but we did drive about 10 minutes to the north to Port Townsend. Port Townsend is a quaint, Victorian town that is somewhat of an artist community. Port Townsend is located where the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound meet.

The Romanesque building in the next photo was built in 1893 as the U. S. Customs House and Post Office. It is still in daily use today as a Post Office with federal offices on the upper floors.



The Post Office and a number of Victorian houses, like the bed and breakfast in the next photo, are located on a hill overlooking the Port Townsend waterfront.



Below us at the waterfront, the ferry from Whidbey Island, WA, was approaching.



The ferry didn't look that big, and we were surprised at how many vehicles, including an 18-wheeler, got off when it docked. All the vehicles in the photo above that were waiting, except for two of the smaller RVs and about half a dozen cars, fit onto the ferry for the return trip to Whidbey. Those that didn't fit had an hour and a half wait for the ferry to return.

From the waterfront, we drove a little way north of town to see the Point Wilson Lighthouse. The light was originally located on top of the keepers house to the left and was first lit in 1879. The light was moved when the tower was completed in 1913.



After our excursion to Port Townsend, Margery had an appointment in Chimacum for a haircut after which we went to the Chimacum Cafe for an early dinner. The cafe was recommended by some of the Escapees. It isn't fancy, but the food is good, and there's plenty of it. Dinners run from about $10 to $15 and include soup, a large salad, potato, vegetable, roll and butter, and ice cream. Paul had chicken-fried steak (special of the day at $8.95) and Margery had fried clam strips. Both meals were great, and we were stuffed when we left. The next photo shows Paul about to dig into his salad. It was smothered in bleu cheese dressing which tasted home made.



From Chimacum, we had about a three-hour drive down around the southern end of Puget Sound to Bothell, WA, which is a northern suburb of Seattle on the eastern side of Puget Sound. In Bothell, we stayed at Lake Pleasant RV Park. Lake Pleasant RV has 186 full-hookup RV sites situated around a lake. The lake is located down in a hollow, which helps eliminate traffic noise from the busy road that passes by the campground. Except for the Canada geese that squawk from time to time, the campground is pretty quiet.

Lake Pleasant RV has 50 amp electric, Wi-Fi, and cable. The roads and pads are paved. The sites are a little narrow, but there are shrubs between the sites for added privacy. The landscaping is attractive and well-groomed. The photo below shows our site at Lake Pleasant RV.

 

We will be using Lake Pleasant RV as a home base to visit the Seattle area where there is a lot to see and do. We'll be covering our adventures in the area in the next several posts.