Summer Vacation Part IV - Silverdale

After leaving Hood River, we had a relatively short four hour trip to our next destination - Silverdale, WA. My wife's parents live there in a house which sits on Dye's inlet. We took several opportunities to investigate the local sea life during the extremely low tides we experienced while there. To illustrate the radical tide swings, note the above picture taken during a low tide. At high tide, the water goes all the way up to the rock wall.

There are tons of shells to look at, and it seems as if you can't go more than two steps without crushing sand dollars under your (hopefully booty equipped) feet. The kids had a great time looking for perfect sand dollars, hermit crabs, and other shells. Of course, I was enlisted to help collect helpless sea creatures as well.

While in Silverdale, we visited the Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport, which is open to the public and free of charge. The museum is extremely kid-friendly, with man hands-on
exhibits including a dress-up area with kid sized costumes.

One day, we made the trip up to Port Townsend, and our trip was stopped at the Hood canal bridge. The original bridge sunk in 1979, and the current version opened about three years later in 1982. It's most notable trait is that it is a floating (or pontoon) bridge, and is also a draw bridge. However, instead of raising up a section of the bridge to let vessels pass through, sections of the floating bridge slide back, like a retracting roadway.

The vessel passing through this time was one of the large subs based at Bangor, and since it was not traveling under its own power, I'm guessing that it was being towed to the Bremerton ship yards for repairs.

After about a week up in Silverdale, the whole family was ready for the trip back. So, with one more stop on the way back home, we took off early in the morning and made our way back South.