Yes, this time I’m writing in Salem, Oregon after a fun filled week and a bit. We made the journey down from Whidbey Island last Thursday stopping at a few places along the way.

Port Townsend

From Whidbey Island we got the ferry across to Port Townsend. Ordinarily this would have been less dramatic, but we didn’t have a reservation and were in the standby queue with no guarantee of a spot. After a little wait, the cars started filing on. It was a close run thing, but rather miraculously we were the second last car on. The alternative was driving down to the bottom of the island and getting the ferry across to Mukilteo which would’ve added at least an hour to the journey.

To avoid further delays we had a quick drive through the historic part of Port Townsend then proceeded to leave and track down Batch Brothers, a burger joint on the outskirts. It was one of the top results for “lunch”, and we didn’t really fancy trying the $15 pasties on offer in one of the cafés (and I won’t call them Cornish because it’s not Cornwall, and no pasty should ever cost that much).

The food was worth the hunt. Beautifully cooked handmade beef patties, crispy skin-on fries and pork belly sliders. These were some of the best burgers I’ve had in quite some time. Sitting outside on a pleasant day was a bonus, and we were recharged before the longest portion of the journey.

We had several more stops, including a picturesque park, a rhododendron garden and finally a truck stop. Being crushed in the back seat wasn’t particularly pleasant, but we survived unscathed. Only later did we learn that putting the car seat in the middle was a lot more comfortable.

Goey-duck (no, really)

I forgot to mention on the last post about our walk at Useless Bay on Whidbey Island. The tide was at a record low, and we spotted a number of people digging for clams. What they produced were less clam than alien, but a delicacy nonetheless. Geoduck clams (pronounced goey-duck, rather counterintuitively) are monster beasts with a soft shell and massive siphon that periodically squirts a water jet above the sand, highlighting it’s whereabouts. The people we spoke to were planning on making sashimi from them. Apparently there’s a massive export market to China, Japan and Korea, though it’s clearly not for it’s looks.

That’s it for now. I’ll have more of the American adventure including Portland, Oregon City and Salem next time.