Walk With Me No. 1 - The Walk to Work in Downtown Port Townsend, Washington

I'm a fan of @lyndsaybowes' wonderful #WalkWithMe photo journeys, which seem to have taken off and become quite a "thing" here on Steemit.

I enjoy them because they give us insight into the many places and lives represented by this truly global community of ours!

My Morning Walk to Work

Today being a nice morning, I wanted to share my fairly short walk to work. My wife and I have a small independent art gallery in downtown Port Townsend, Washington.

Because downtown parking is in short supply, and this is a tourist town, it's more or less an unspoken rule that downtown merchants park away from downtown and walk in, leaving the parking spaces for visitors.

So here we go:

I park on top of the hill on Washington Street, next to our main post office. It's a rather "grand" edifice from 1903, and has always struck me as a particularly fine example of what a government building SHOULD look like: Gray and "solid."

This morning, a seagull was keeping lookout from the top of the flagpole. Seagulls are a fact of life around here...

We're surrounded by mountains and water. Looking down Washington street, past the post office, AWAY from downtown-- those are the snow covered Olympics in the distance.

Turn about 60 degrees to the left, and you can see more of the Olympics, this time with Port Townsend Bay in the foreground.

There are lots of beautifully restored Victorian-era homes on top of the hill; this is one of the swanker parts of town. Many of the houses in the central core area were built between 1850-1910.

Another fine old home-- this one is now a Bed-and-breakfast. That's the post office creeping into the picture at left.

And another; these houses all sit on a bluff overlooking downtown, the Admiralty Inlet, Port Townsend Bay and the Cascades beyond-- it's definitely a "100-mile view." On a clear day, we can see all the way to the Garibaldis, beyond Vancouver, BC.

Continuing the view around towards the water; that's our ferry terminal (ferry to Whidbey Island). The crane in the distance at at the Indian Island Naval Magazine.

And turning a little further left, there goes the ferry to Whidbey Island. We have a lot of ferries (or "floating highways") around here. You can start to see some of the Cascade range in the distance.

A little further left, and you can start to see the buildings downtown...

Pan back a bit further, and you get a sense of the panoramic view the houses on top of the hill have...

The higher Cascade peaks have snow well into the summer; some years the snows never melt fully.

The Taylor Street dock is one of the larger downtown piers; smaller cruise ships call here once a week during the late spring, summer and fall.

Meanwhile, I continue to walk down the Washington Street hill towards downtown. Now the land you see in the distance is Whidbey Island. There is another body of water between Whidbey and the Cascade Mountains in the distance. As I said, we take ferries everywhere.

Pretty much all of Port Townsend is a historical district, which means most of the buildings have been preserved pretty close to the way they were during the city's "great years," during the second half of the 1800's.

We know a lot about this, first hand, as you practically need a permit to put a nail in the wall!

However, the downtown core is pretty much without modern buildings and that's part of what makes the city attractive to visitors. Shopping is also a unique experience: It doesn't take people long to notice the complete absence of chain stores; everything is locally owned an operated. Our solitary McDonald's, the Safeway grocery and such are well away from the historical areas.

When I get close to the bottom of the hill, I cut to the right and go down four flights of stairs against the hillside, leading down to Tyler Street, behind our building. It's a bit messy at the moment, due to a major infrastructure update to get wiring, plumbing and sewage into the 21st century.

At the bottom of the hill, I turn left, and that's the public parking lot behind our building. Our gallery/shop is in the bottom level of the taller red building, back right.

And so, we come to the end of the daily walk to work. This is a glimpse into our little alley behind the building; I get in through one of the arched doorways under the stairs. You can tell these were put in a long time ago, when people were a lot shorter than my 6'4"!

The Mount Baker Block Building dates to 1889, and based on old photos does not look materially different today from how it looked back then. Part of what makes it unique is that it is home to "Undertown," which is actually a below-grade shopping arcade where our gallery is located.

And yes, it's a little harder to walk back UP the hill to the car, at the end of a long day!

I hope you enjoyed this, my first attempt at a "walk with me" post! I might do some more if this turns out to be well-received. Many thanks to Lyndsay for coming up with the idea and getting it rolling!

Thanks for reading! As always, comments are invited and welcome!

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Created at 180217 23:38 PST