Port Townsend Fort Worden

Images: 1. Battery Walker. Courtesy www.callipygia600.com

2. Mild-looking-during-the-daytime battery www.usforting.com

For my birthday we traveled north 35 minutes to the Victorian seaport Port Townsend. Fort Worden has large homes (former officers houses, NCO houses, and barracks) that you can rent. I gathered a big bunch of folks and we moved into a former barrack with 11 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, giant dining room, which came with everything you could need in a kitchen including 4 coffee pots and two fridges and stoves. I was in heaven. The purpose of this was to go through the batteries at night. This park (and Fort Flagler and Fort.... hmmm the other one) all protected the entrance to Puget Sound during WWI and WWII. The military has long moved out of these (1950's for Fort Worden) What is left is the cement batteries that held the cannons and the large artillery. Former radio buildings. A giant empty underground water tank. Without windows or wood doors they seem like an ancient ruin of some sort except they are still fully intact. During the day you need a flashlight to go through them, at night they are positively eerie. There are narrow passageways, giant steel doors that squeek and clang and of course, friends that run screaming through them. Or silently hiding in corners waiting to scare the piss out of you. I considered buying a bag of "Depends" for myself. I more need it for laughter (terror-filled) than fear based expulsions of fluids. I usually cannot stop laughing through this. We did it once before five years ago, but that was just with gal pals. The stories we amassed during that trek are priceless, and I am beginning to wonder if we have started embellishing them a bit. I can't wait to hear those stories when we are all 80. I am sure their relation to the reality of the moment of 2005 will be loose. But they will be dang good stories!