fulltimeusa

Brinnon to Port Townsend  Olympic Peninsula, Washington.

It rained most of yesterday evening and all of last night.  The rain was fairly light but occasionally there was a cell of heavy rain.  When we woke this morning the Dosewallips River right behind our campsite was much higher.  No where near flood stage but it got our attention.  The rain has stopped now and the sun shines through intermittently.  Temp outside this morning was 44 F.  Had a hardy breakfast of bacon and eggs, got our showers, checked the stock market and stowed everything for traveling down the road.  We’ll dump our tanks, take on fresh water and head to Port Townsend.

Before we left Dosewallips State Park we wandered around for awhile and spotted part of a herd of Roosevelt Elk.  They are known to wander through the park intermittently.   Did not see any large male elk with racks.  We were told that all the large male Elk with full racks in this herd had been killed by hunters.  This, of course, is not the natural way.   Usually,the natural elk predators take the weak, small and sick leaving the strong and healthy to procreate.  Likely hunters do not want to “bag” the weak and sickly elk as that wouldn’t be much of a prize.

Female Elk in Dosewallips State Park

Part of a herd of Roosevelt Elk seen in Dosewallips State Park

Port Townsend

Arrived in Port Townsend in late afternoon after spending most of the day poking around places along to way.  The Port Townsend Visitor Center is at the edge of town if you are coming in from the south.  The Visitor Center has free parking for RVs and you can take the “hop on/hop off” shuttle right in front into the Old Town for about $1.00 for the day.  That’s very helpful as we were told there is little parking in the Old Town section for RVs.  We plan to spend the day doing just that tomorrow.  Since it is lightly raining here intermittently, we’ll just relax for the rest of the day and catch up on chores and some e-mail.  We will overnight in the Visitor Center RV Parking Area (free) and catch the early shuttle in the morning.

Entering Port Townsend

Port Townsend Visitor Center, Olympic Peninsula, Washington

Port Townsend Visitor Center RV Parking Area

Boondocking

Just a word about our boondocking practices.  We are completely set up to dry camp, boondock, anywhere.  We look for places that are free, preferably in beautiful &/or convenient areas.  In order to travel as much as we do we just find it wise to cut costs where we can.  We see no reason to pay for facilities we do not need or want and would not even see if we are just overnighting somewhere as we usually arive at night and leave in the morning.  Of course, if there are severe restrictions on boondocking then we move and find a place that is OK.  Since our budget is tight something has to give and this works well for us.  There are good reasons for full service campgrounds for people and that is where you will find most RVers.  It’s just that we don’t need these facilities and want to spend the money we have on other things and in other ways.  So, since we are set up to do so, you will see throughout this blog where we find places to boondock for free or a very minimal charge.  We have never had trouble doing this and our practice of always asking permission where appropriate has paid off.  We are not frightened to be on our own somewhere and are not easily bothered by noise or light.  Occationally, we pay to camp somewhere if that suits our needs but usually it is rare.  I think in all of 2011, we “plugged into the grid” two times and one of those times was because we had 4″ of snow on our solar panels.