Goin' Mobile-A Dance Gypsy's tour of the country

    It has been a very busy two days now since I last wrote. Sorry it has taken so long to get anything down on 'paper', but I've been out exploring and having fun.... which always takes precendence over routine matters like writing blogs.
   Yesterday was spent driving around some of Puget Sound in this huge circle. I started out by going north of Seattle to the little town of Mukilteo where they have this wonderful little lighthouse located on the point of land there. (See photo's below.) I spent some time wandering around the area snapping photo's of the lighthouse and surrounding area and enjoying a nice sunny morning.
   Once done there it was just a hop over to the other side of the road where the parking lot for the Widbey Island Ferry was located. A total of $8.30 got me and the truck on the ferry and 20 minutes later we were rolling off the other end of the boat onto the Island.
   There are two lighthouse's on the Island itself, so I drove around until I had found and photographed both of them. One is now on private property, so there is only a distant shot of it down an access road, but it isn't much of a lighthouse to look at anyway. The other one is just up the hill from the ferry leading off the Island and going over to the town of Port Townsend on the Olympic Peninsula. The 'Admiralty Point Lighthouse' is just beautiful and I hope to have some photo's of that up on line in another day or two.
   Hopped on over to the mainland again after having to wait in the ferry line for about an hour longer than usual since one of the two ferry's was out of service that day. It was a nice day though so I could spend the time walking on the beach there and reading my book. Once in Port Townsend it was time, past time actually, to find some lunch. So I parked the truck and walked up and down the main street of old town until I found a cute little café in one of the old, old buildings there. Fresh caught ling cod was on the menu as their version of fish and chips. Yum! Ling cod may be one of the ugliest fish ever pulled from the waters of the sea, but it sure is delicious. Reminds me a lot of walleye, my favorite fresh water fish to eat.
    Unfortunately I went the wrong way out of town after eating, heading west towards the town of Dungeness in order to see the lighthouse out on Dungeness Spit. It wasn't until I got there that I found out it was going to be a 5 mile walk out on the spit and then 5 miles back just to get there. Since the sun was starting to go down anyway, that was pretty much the end of that quest. At least for this time around.
    Turned around and headed back east toward Olympia and then on north towards Bellevue and my trailer. Did take a little time out for a late bite to eat, but otherwise it was several hours of driving to get back home. Unfortunately it meant not getting back to the Seattle area in time for the contra dance, so maybe next time.
    Today has been a little slower. Spent the morning at the trailer reading and then working on some photo's. Late this afternoon I went on back to Discovery Park, just north of downtown Seattle, and walked on the beach and spent a couple hours just watching the water while reading. A beautiful sunny day with a temperature around 70 degrees, so there were lots of people out and about, both walking in the park and out on the sound on a boat of some kind.
   So now it is dark and I'm holed up in a Micky D's using their WiFi to get this out. The signal there at the RV park is enough to read most things, like fb or the comics, but it isn't good enough to actually load up photo's or anything else. So here I sit for another 30 minutes or so. Right now though I need to finish this up and get on to other things.

Mukilteo Lighthouse at Mukilteo, Washington - 10-3-2014

The front door to the Mukilteo Lighthouse. The word Mukilteo is actually a Native American word meaning 'good place for camping', as a local tribe would use this site for their winter camp site. The tower is 38 feet tall and has a 4th order Fresnel lens.

That is Puget Sound in the background.

A view of the tower and the 4th order Fresnel lens.

I like this view for some reason.

The total station consisted of not only the lighthouse building and tower, but also two keeper's houses a windmill-pumphouse building and several small out buildings. Total cost of construction for all of it in 1905-06 was $27,000.


The Widbey Island ferry docks right next door to the lighthouse. I took the ferry over to the island after finishing up here so that I could see several other lighthouses out there. Total cost for me and the truck was $8.30.