Wow. We had quite a fun and spooky weekend in Port Townsend. We took the ferry from Edmonds, through Kingston and arrived in Port Townsend about 6:00pm on the dot on Saturday. It's good we arrived at 6:00, because our dinner reservations where at 6:00 at the Belmont Saloon and Inn. I must say, I was disappointed in the Belmont. Though the decor was cool (high ceilings, tall windows overlooking the Sound, original brick walls, this building was first constructed in the 1880s and was a rough and tumble saloon), the food turned out to be way overpriced. I spent like $60.00 and the food was only worth about a 25-30 $$ meal. I made the mistake of ordering top sirloin that they served with some sort of peppercorn/gorgonzola sauce. I thought I liked gorgonzola. I was wrong. It was so bitter and disgusting. The waiter was friendly but looked at me like I was crazy when I asked for Heinz 57. I've come to the conculsion that big hunks of meat (esp. steak) are best eaten with steak sauce and no fancy sauces. Anyways. After dinner we checked into the Palace Hotel and descened the grand green staircase (very wide and fairly steep). At the top of the staircase was an oil painting of a young, prettyish woman in a long blue gown/turn of the century probably. More about her later. THe Palace Hotel is just the BEST ever. The decor is all victorian. Lots of chandeliers, antique lamps, green and cranberry red velvet furniture. Fainting couches (my favorite). Art Noveau art, etc. High ceilings, brass beds, lace curtains. We had to share a bath with the other "continental" rooms on the 2nd floor, but I didn't mind at all. Jason and I filled up the ENORMOUS clawfoot tub with jasmine bubblebath, and we sat in there (a tub that fits two comfortably is something I must own once in my life..I adore these huge tubs!) drinking Baileys out of nice little liquer glasses. We also had just one solitary white candle lit and it was very romantic and slightly spooky because I could just feel that there were spirit(s) in this place. I could feel it in my chest. My heart was always pounding and I felt very excitable and almost ELECTRIC. Anyways, rumor has it that Room#4 (We were next door in Room #5)is the hotbed of ghostly activity. Legend has it that the ghost that haunts this hallways and #4 is Miss Tibbal. She is the daughter or the man who constructed the original building and she is the lady in painting with the blue dress that one encounters when you first ascend that grand green staircase. We asked for the "ghost file" which the front desk clerk had mentioned to us because we were very intrigued. We sat in bed til fairly late reading about real and obviously made-up (silly people..telling ghost stories for fun!) encounters with "Claire" the builder's daughter. She has been heard moaning and softly crying because legend has it that she was waiting for her beloved one evening to come to her at the hotel, and when she glanced a glimpse of him on the street below, he was on the arm of another woman. So, Claire, feeling scorned, roams this hotel, feeling lonely and trying to find her lover infidel. I didn't see or hear anything unusual (and neither did the people in room#4), but I will admit that I had a terrible time trying to get to sleep and it's not because I was scared. I'm not sure what it was, honestly. We did at some point before bed light a candle and for fun, we did sort of a "mock" seance (mock in that I know I am not a medium by any stretch of the word!). But I wrote on the hotel stationary a letter to this ghostly woman asking her to visit us if she needed comforting, and that we would welcome her. I don't know where she got herself to but it wasn't to our room. Anyways, Jason woke up at approx. 2:30 am and he said he felt irrationally afraid though he saw or heard nothing. In fact, he was so frightened that he wouldn't even go outside our room down the hall to use the toilet (which he desperately needed to). I wish he would haven woken me up. I would have gone out there with him. He did think he heard footsteps in the hallway outside our room, but he wasn't sure if they were hotel guests or the more "permanent" guests. Needless to say, We will be staying at the Palace Hotel again and I plan to book it for Oct. 31 (when all the "portals" are the most wide open....whoooooooohhh)and I want to book room#4, just to see what this ghost business is all about. We'll see. On Sunday we went looking around in all the cool vintage shops. I did buy a pair of pretty red bead earrings and Jason bought 4 old "Amazing Stories" mags from this cool antique auto supply/parts dealer. The mags were from the mid 40's..very good deal. I also fell in love with a book at an antique store I must have, though it is $165.00 and I'll have to think about whether I really should blow $165.00 on my next pay check. I am fasincated by old medical books. Crazy stuff inside these books. I found one from 1844 entitled "Diseases of the Female" that I really want. It classifies pregnancy as a disease which is just a shame! It also mentions treating morning sickness (and just about any other ailment!) with opium or laudanum..yikes! Ladies, your nauseau will go away in a fortnight (and you will become and addict and so will your child, possibly!)..they had old pictures of speculums also... CREEPY..OUCH!! Anyways...we also drove to Fort Worden, which was a military base/lookout during WWII...it is celebrating its centennial 1902-2002 this year. Pretty interesting grounds with lots of wooded trails and old, abandoneded concrete bunkers and storage structures, some of which were open. Dark, dank and creepy is all I have to say about walking through old bunkers!! Well, that is about it. We had a great anniversary weekend!!

do the jerk * do the frug