Raymond - Port Angeles

I had a nice meal at Tatchers and Vince's place in Raymond ; a BBQ-ed porcsteak and a good shower. I slept in the tent in his yard. His mother gave me a selfmade nicely coloured hat that will keep my head warm way up north into Canada. It will be giving me good luck on my journey, she said. I believe her, thank you ma'm, you've got a very generous son. I talked in the evening on the 7177 net with his TS440 and a wireloop antenna. He is active as a races member and already helped people that way. Watched some tv on the very big screen in his livingroom in the evening. He helped me soldering some electrical stuff that came loose during the journey. I charged my batteries and had a nice breakfast ; a real sandwich with roastbeef and vegetables and a layer of sauce in-between. Said goodbye to them in the morning and drove into the city of Raymond where I stumbled upon Marc. He was cycling from Seattle to Miami over the westcoast. He's a French citizen and.. has almost the same bicycle as I do. A Koga signature but a 26-model where I have a 28. He's retired and also enjoys cycling around. He also keeps a blog on http://www.marc-hummel.fr/

Godspeed Marc !

I continued north to Aberdeen and Hoquiam. Both cities sunk away into the recession, Aberdeen had a great role as a port for exporting cedar-wood out of the Olympic National Park. In Hoquiam I met an 84 year old man that had a radioroom in his oldstylegarage. He fixes remote controlled devices that sound a horn when chopping down trees. He also was into cb-radio and the carbussines some decades ago. He has a radiolab that dates back to ... I don't know but it shurely is not from after 1970.. He didn't allow taking a picture of him, kind of camerashy.

Driving upto Humptulips in the National Parc, I was looking for a place to pitch up my tent for the night. When entering the town I asked a man in his garden if he knew a nice place to tent. He replied ; next to my crick. Well, it seems that he had a watercreek on his premise where it was very nice to pitch up the tent. I was some 300 meters away from his house. While setting up , his three young  grandchildren that were there on a visit, al sons btw.., came over to me and gave me two burgers and a gatorade bottle. They were doing a BBQ and had some 'leftovers'. They even offered me three dollars that I kindly refused ;-)

In the evening I had a nice conversation with Mr. Anderson - who had Norwegian ancestors - and was offered some freshly baked cookies and roasted meatsticks to enjoy on the way. Seems that he has family all-over the place and he worked into the town as a dockworker during the early years after WW2. His wife then had some rather popular ancestors in Tombstone .. In the morning I received an oakmeal breakfast and some hot coffee that woke me up. Going up strong again I ended up in Kalaloch where I camped in the Statepark thats located just next-to the Pacific Ocean. Great views and said goodbye to the great Pacific for this trip.. I met a rather of-the-world-guy in his 50's over there that was cycling because of psychological reasons.. He drove a Peugeot cycle dating from the 70's. We had some beers and clifbars while listening to my 817. In the morning he was already gone at 8 o'clock. The crows stole some bread from me.. Cycled trough the vampiretown of Forks where the Twilight saga movies were filmed. I saw that movie once but remind that I felt asleep while watching it..The town really thrives on the tourists coming over there to explore the Twilight-town. There's a filmposter , or more , in -every- shop, bizar. Weatherwise it's still around 60-65 F and clouded with from time to time a rainshower ... The wind is still's blowing from the north / northwest .. I saw the lots of snowpeaked mountains in the Olympic National Parc / rainforest and new also the 7965 feet high mount Olympus.

I slept in between Fairholm and Sappho on a public and free campground in the woods. Had some nice contacts on 40 meter, had a really high hanging dipole there. The place was being cleaned in the morning by 7 inmates wearing orange shirts, being guarded by only one officer. On the borders of Lake Cresent I met Mitch, who was walking the 300 mile stretch around the Olympus peninsula for charity. From Port Angeles I will take the ferry over street of Juan de Fuca into Victoria, BC Canada.