Hitched and Rolling

Bremerton, WA

Thursday morning we woke up at our hotel. The hotel is charming. It is clean and seems entirely unchanged from the 1970s. Complete with a shag carpet, some kind of infrared bathroom heat lamp and a faux-wood GE mini fridge. As is tradition, we stopped for a coffee and took Duke to a local park on our way into the morning world.

Bre’s sister Billielee and her wife Tiffany live around 10 minutes from the hotel and when we arrived we were met with some awesome bagels, cream cheese, and lox. Billielee and Tiffany have both at some point been professionals in the culinary world so they take food pretty seriously, which is of course appreciated by your author. For examples, with the bagels, cream cheese and lox was also available some sprig of dill as garnish.

We hung out for a few hours and as you can imagine the main event, the thanksgiving meal, was also fantastic. We had stuffing, cornish hens, green beans, and the most delicious squash-mash dish I have ever tasted. Billielee and Tiffany’s friend Julia came over with a pumpkin pie and there was also a homemade cranberry and cherry tart made by none other than ex-professional-pastry-chef Billielee.

We hung out at their place for six or seven hours and it was really Fun to hear stories about Bre and Billielee‘s childhood in Virginia. 20+ year-old family photos made an appearance which always ads a bit of color to any family gathering.  

It was raining most of the day but at one point it cleared up and Duke, who, as always, was quite popular, got to demonstrate his incredible fetch prowess on the back lawn. 

After a wonderful day we left with full stomachs and headed back to our humble accommodation, the Flagship Inn, which, I must add, has an incredible shower. On Friday we woke up to a different view from the hotel balcony. The fog and rain had been replaced by crystal clear blue sky’s and sunshine – a phenomenon that Bre explained to me is fairly rare in Bremerton, and should not be taken for granted. 

After a quick Starbucks run, we drove up onto the hill to an old cemetery to catch a glimpse of the only-visible-in-clear-weather Mt. Rainier. I parked the car so that we could just take in John Muir‘s favorite “fire mountain” in all of its glory for a few minutes, before we headed to a local park to play some fetch with our young beast.

We had all-you-can-eat sushi for lunch before heading back to Billielee and Tiffany’s to hang out some more, and take a group trip to the park for some fetch and walking. When we got back to their place, Tiffany, having driven behind us for a couple miles on the way home from the park, noted that our van’s rear storage trunk was surfing up and down somewhat alarmingly, an insight that would prove to be quite prescient later on.

After hanging out a bit longer on Friday afternoon Bre and I decided to hit the road and continue our journey. As we left the Bremerton area, it was now squarely nighttime, and Bre, sitting in the passenger seat, reflected on how nice it was to see her sister Billielee and her wife Tiffany. I agreed as I had not met them before. We were really grateful for the stop, the hospitality, the family time, and of course the delicious food.

But as is the nature of life on the road, circumstances demanded that we look ahead. Connecting to the starlink, Bre identified a farm and Cidery as a potential harvest host at which we could stay the night. Unable to reach them by phone or by website, we decided to just drive there and see what happened.

Upon arriving at the farm/cidery we introduced ourselves and asked about whether their parking lot was accepting overnight guests. We were greeted with an emphatic “of course!” before ordering a pair of cider flights. Duke was invited inside and the host’s husband Duncan soon appeared. Turns out Duncan had hiked the majority of the Appalachian Trail in 2018 so when Bre told him how we had met his face lit up and we spent the the next couple hours sharing trail stories over their homemade cider. 

The owners of the farm could not have been nicer and we had a wonderful evening hanging out. By the time the operation finally shut down for the evening, Bre and I had sampled every cider on tap and ordered a pizza for dinner, which buzz insisted we enjoy in the heated patio gazebo he maintained just a few steps outside the cidery.

Another wonderful day and night. One of my favorite things about this trip is the people that we meet along the way, sharing stories and having fun. Hitched and Rolling is very similar to hiking the Appalachian Trail in that way