The lovely little town of Port Angeles

We took two days off from sight-seeing.  There's only so much running around you can do.  Besides that, you have to do all the mundane life things like laundry,  cleaning, banking, blog writing and more.  But this blog post is not boring (as far as I'm concerned anyway!).  It's all about the area we are staying in as we visited Olympic National Park.

Here's a little history about Port Angeles.  Port Angeles is a city in Clallam County. The population was 19,038 as of the 2010 census. The City's harbor was dubbed Puerto de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles (Port of Our Lady of the Angels) by Spanish explorer Francisco de Eliza in 1791, but by the mid-19th century the name had been shortened and partially anglicized to its current form, Port Angeles Harbor.

Port Angeles is located in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains, which means the city gets significantly less rain than other areas of western Washington. The average annual precipitation total is approximately 25 inches, compared to Seattle's 38 inches.  Port Angeles is also the birthplace of football hall of famer, John Elway.

 

Entering the "old" part of Port Angeles, you are greeted by this wonderful, warm "Welcome" display.

 

This next series of photos were taken in the "old" downtown area.  In this section of town, there are no box retailers, no fast food restaurants, no Starbucks nor any other franchised type of business.  All those types of business establishments are located in the outskirts of the older part of the city.  This helps to maintain a nice, homey small-town feel to the city. 

 

This is the Carnegie Museum which Gary said used to be the library.

 

Isn't this an amazing building?  It's the Clallam County Courthouse established in 1914 and restored in 1999 and again in 2010.

 

This is the Veteran's Memorial Park.

This is a scenic area with a beautiful water fountain right off 1st Street.  Can you see the stairs going up behind it? Don't you love those stunning hanging flower baskets?

  

We had another exceptional church experience this Sunday.  We visited Lighthouse Church in Port Angeles.  Want to read a little bit about this church?  Here's a link to their website:  http://www.lighthousepa.org/

 

This church sits on a hill that overlooks the port and the Strait of Juan de Fuca.  In this photo from the church property you can see across the port and the strait all the way to Canada.  See that thin slip of land right behind the ship on the left?  That is Ediz Hook--basically a spit.  Take a look at the beautiful blue skies because in a later shot you'll know why I brought this to your attention.

 

On our way out to Ediz Hook, we stopped at this view point that overlooks the port and I couldn't resist this typical beach portrait of a seagull standing on its poop stoup.

 

Another port portrait from the view point looking across the Straight of Juan de Fuca toward Canada.  See the few gathering clouds?

 

We drove out the whole length of the spit (about 3 miles long) after church and took a few photos from that vantage point, looking back from the spit toward the church on the hill and the city, Port Angeles.  Notice that the clouds have moved past the gathering stage and are now thickly hanging over the mountains?  This is what meteorologists refer to as a partly cloudy day!  It's true, though.  It didn't rain.

The next two photos were taken the night before from our campsite.  Almost every night the clouds come swirling down the mountains lingering over the mountaintops.  The first photo was taken looking north.  Doesn't it makes for such an enchanting picture?

 

This photo was taken a little later in the evening looking west as the sun was setting.

Monday we are heading to Port Townsend to load up on the ferry (RV, Jeep and two dogs) over to the mainland (Coupeville) and then off to the Northern Cascades National Park.  Rain is in the forecast for our whole time in the Cascades :(.  It should still be beautiful country to look at, but the rain may make for dreary photos.