After walking around the town in Port Townsend, we drove a short distance to check out Fort Worden.  This base is now turned over to the community and the base buildings are used for a variety of enterprises.  The whole area is a state park so we renewed our annual pass (it hadn’t been needed when we were going nowhere!) and talk a walk up to the old gun emplacements.

One of the things I like about these old installations in the state parks is that they are almost unchanged other than the guns having been removed.  There is no fencing and so you can wander around and climb the ladders up on top if you chose (and you can fall off the edge if you aren’t careful!).  It looks much like it would have a century ago.  The only thing now is that a lot of trees have grown up where once there would have been open views.

We wandered along the rows of concrete works and read about the different batteries and who they were named after.  There were large iron rings set in the walls which caught our eye and these were used for mounting block and tackle to allow the guns to be hauled in to place.  On a sunny day the whole place felt very relaxing to walk around but I imagine the concrete structures were a lot less pleasant on a damp and cold winter’s morning.  Some interesting history to check out.