On Sunday my friend Allison and I went on a day trip to Port Angeles. Our motivation was to visit a rock shop Allison had previously visited and thought was awesome and worth going to again. I was up for it. It's not like I don't enjoy myself a good rock shop ;). We left at around 10:45am to catch the 11:30 Edmonds-Kingston ferry.
A bomb sniffing dog checking out the cars in the ferry line.
We made the ferry just fine and then drove to Port Angeles. The Woolly Mammoth Rock Shop was our destination. We arrived there to find that the gates that lead to the parking lot of the shop were closed and locked. On their business card that Allison had it said that Sunday hours were noon to 5pm and it was around 2pm. So I went ahead and called the phone number on the business card to double check what was going on. A guy answered who sounded a little disgruntled and unprofessional mumbling about a 'retarded owner' and 'bull****'. He then asked if we were the ones parked out in the driveway (he could see us from the shop) and I said yes. He decided to come out to give us his new business card as his rock shop was going to be moving into his house. As he got to the gate I guess he decided we seemed like nice gals and opened the gate and said we could just go ahead and look at the shop anyway, even though it was closing and they were in the process of moving it out. The whole time he keeps rambling about the owner of the property, who also happened to be his business partner. Many choice words muttered as I'm sure anyone can guess.
Allison and I were very grateful that we didn't come all the way to Port Angeles from Seattle for no reason. We start looking around the shop while the gentleman that let us in keeps disappearing taking phone calls from his soon to be ex-business partner in which his voice keeps raising and profanity can be heard. The gentleman's wife eventually comes out and kind of lingers around as we are looking and starts talking to us. She was very nice and kind of stressed out that her husband was having such a bad day and she was also very apologetic to us for having to experience it. She also let us know that we were going to be the last customers ever to the store and that she would give us a deal on anything we wanted to buy. At some point another gentleman enters the store and it turns out that he's the brother of the property owning business partner and according to the gentleman that let us in he was there to possibly 'rough him up' or scare him. The gentleman a little bit later comes back in and is telling his wife that the other business partner called to tell him that he called the police because the gates were open and I guess since he was the land owner he was able to decide that the other guy couldn't have customers on the property? I'm not really sure. His brother probably told him.
After that everyone got more tense and antsy. Allison and I decided to pick up the pace so we could leave just about the same time that the wife told us we may want to leave soon as the police were now there. So we both picked out a pair of earrings that were made from a meteorite that fell into the Gobi Desert in China (cute and nerdy) and she took $6 off the price which was nice of her. We then left and said goodbye and waved to the police officers (who waved back) who were talking to the wife and the property owner (and his brother). The original gentleman that let us in escorted us out to the car and apologized about everything that was going on. He was understandably embarrassed about the whole situation and how he was responding to it. Anyways, so that was the rock shop!
On to lunch! We circled the town I think 3 times? Since the whole town is one giant one way circle...so once you passed something you had to go all the way around until you came to whatever it was again. We had lunch at a cute little restaurant Chestnut something. Chestnut Inn? We ate and then went down to the water front of Port Angeles. There are a bunch of random art sculptures down there.
There was also a nice little pier with a look out tower at the end that we climbed so we could get a little higher and take some pictures.
Semi-lastly, we found the actual Italian restaurant (La Bella Italia) in Port Angeles from the book Twilight. They are definitely milking the publicity, but I would do the same thing if I were them! It's not quite how I pictured it, but it worked. There was also an article in the window where apparently Stephenie Meyer (the author of Twilight) paid the restaurant a surprise visit in June 2008. Oh, and they also offer a special with the mushroom ravioli. You order the mushroom ravioli and you get a free coke. Twilight fans will get the humor in that.
In the end I had Allison stop at the Walmart in Port Angeles so I could see if they had any copies of the Twilight dvd left for sale. They did! I just thought it would be cool if I bought my dvd from Port Angeles. Ok, so not cool, but for me it was more exciting. They were out of the special delux blahty blah version so I had to settle for the normal 1 disc $17 version..which is the one I would've gotten anyway. That Walmart also had a ridiculous quantity of random Twilight merchandise strategically positioned right next to the dvd fixture. In the parking lot Allison's car wouldn't start, but I guess it has that problem on occasion so she just has to wiggle the connections to the battery. Her car did this again as we were trying to start the car when the ferry line was moving to board the ferry, so poor Allison has to rush out to pop the hood and wiggle the connections in the pouring rain so that the people in the cars behind us didn't have to wait. Very dramatic. Then we came home and the adventure was over. The end. More photos of our adventure can be seen in my flickr photostream.
We made the ferry just fine and then drove to Port Angeles. The Woolly Mammoth Rock Shop was our destination. We arrived there to find that the gates that lead to the parking lot of the shop were closed and locked. On their business card that Allison had it said that Sunday hours were noon to 5pm and it was around 2pm. So I went ahead and called the phone number on the business card to double check what was going on. A guy answered who sounded a little disgruntled and unprofessional mumbling about a 'retarded owner' and 'bull****'. He then asked if we were the ones parked out in the driveway (he could see us from the shop) and I said yes. He decided to come out to give us his new business card as his rock shop was going to be moving into his house. As he got to the gate I guess he decided we seemed like nice gals and opened the gate and said we could just go ahead and look at the shop anyway, even though it was closing and they were in the process of moving it out. The whole time he keeps rambling about the owner of the property, who also happened to be his business partner. Many choice words muttered as I'm sure anyone can guess.
Allison and I were very grateful that we didn't come all the way to Port Angeles from Seattle for no reason. We start looking around the shop while the gentleman that let us in keeps disappearing taking phone calls from his soon to be ex-business partner in which his voice keeps raising and profanity can be heard. The gentleman's wife eventually comes out and kind of lingers around as we are looking and starts talking to us. She was very nice and kind of stressed out that her husband was having such a bad day and she was also very apologetic to us for having to experience it. She also let us know that we were going to be the last customers ever to the store and that she would give us a deal on anything we wanted to buy. At some point another gentleman enters the store and it turns out that he's the brother of the property owning business partner and according to the gentleman that let us in he was there to possibly 'rough him up' or scare him. The gentleman a little bit later comes back in and is telling his wife that the other business partner called to tell him that he called the police because the gates were open and I guess since he was the land owner he was able to decide that the other guy couldn't have customers on the property? I'm not really sure. His brother probably told him.
After that everyone got more tense and antsy. Allison and I decided to pick up the pace so we could leave just about the same time that the wife told us we may want to leave soon as the police were now there. So we both picked out a pair of earrings that were made from a meteorite that fell into the Gobi Desert in China (cute and nerdy) and she took $6 off the price which was nice of her. We then left and said goodbye and waved to the police officers (who waved back) who were talking to the wife and the property owner (and his brother). The original gentleman that let us in escorted us out to the car and apologized about everything that was going on. He was understandably embarrassed about the whole situation and how he was responding to it. Anyways, so that was the rock shop!
On to lunch! We circled the town I think 3 times? Since the whole town is one giant one way circle...so once you passed something you had to go all the way around until you came to whatever it was again. We had lunch at a cute little restaurant Chestnut something. Chestnut Inn? We ate and then went down to the water front of Port Angeles. There are a bunch of random art sculptures down there.
There was also a nice little pier with a look out tower at the end that we climbed so we could get a little higher and take some pictures.
Semi-lastly, we found the actual Italian restaurant (La Bella Italia) in Port Angeles from the book Twilight. They are definitely milking the publicity, but I would do the same thing if I were them! It's not quite how I pictured it, but it worked. There was also an article in the window where apparently Stephenie Meyer (the author of Twilight) paid the restaurant a surprise visit in June 2008. Oh, and they also offer a special with the mushroom ravioli. You order the mushroom ravioli and you get a free coke. Twilight fans will get the humor in that.
In the end I had Allison stop at the Walmart in Port Angeles so I could see if they had any copies of the Twilight dvd left for sale. They did! I just thought it would be cool if I bought my dvd from Port Angeles. Ok, so not cool, but for me it was more exciting. They were out of the special delux blahty blah version so I had to settle for the normal 1 disc $17 version..which is the one I would've gotten anyway. That Walmart also had a ridiculous quantity of random Twilight merchandise strategically positioned right next to the dvd fixture. In the parking lot Allison's car wouldn't start, but I guess it has that problem on occasion so she just has to wiggle the connections to the battery. Her car did this again as we were trying to start the car when the ferry line was moving to board the ferry, so poor Allison has to rush out to pop the hood and wiggle the connections in the pouring rain so that the people in the cars behind us didn't have to wait. Very dramatic. Then we came home and the adventure was over. The end. More photos of our adventure can be seen in my flickr photostream.
