I am sitting at my friend Carol’s dining room table in her 90-year-old farmhouse in St. Helen’s, Oregon. I notice the broad plank stairs leading to her deck off the kitchen: broad treads, low risers. I notice that her shower in the upstairs bathroom has a seat molded into it, handy to wash between my toes, and that the vanity is large and attractive. I notice the wainscoting on the bathroom walls and wonder if Carol chose the salmon pink (I don’t think so…). The bathroom is spacious, particularly after the compact motel bathroom that I had for two nights in Port Angeles to the north. Carol’s bathroom feels like a room, not an afterthought, although I liked the small white pedestal sink in the bathroom of room six at the Travelers Motel.

In the kitchen, the paring knife I pull out to cut a pear from Carol’s tree is sharp, as it should be. I am pleased. I admire two curved wooden stools at the central island.

I have been traveling since Tuesday night, first by train, then by private car, to reach Port Angeles, Washington, which looked like somewhere I might want to move after my elderly mother dies. I was attracted by the location, the year-round farmers market, the amenities (bookstores, restaurants). It has a hospital, a post office, a courthouse. You can get in or out of there by bus, ferry or rail (I don’t drive). So I made contact with a realtor who used to live in California, persuaded my first cousin to stay with my mother for a week, and made an Amtrak reservation.

I left the train in Olympia and stayed the night with a member of a writing group I belong to on Zoom. She, her husband and I drove to Seattle the next day to pick up another writer from our group and we all made our way to Port Angeles by car ferry and highway.

After dinner — finding an open restaurant that could serve us was an adventure in itself — my friends dropped me off at my motel and departed for Sequim and Victoria, B.C.

I had chosen my motel based on some online photos and a description. It looked like I might be able to walk to town from there. Although we drove from downtown Port Angeles to the motel and back twice, that was not enough to orient me, and although I had seen nearby businesses (a bank, a furniture store) I had not seen a restaurant or a grocery store in the vicinity of the motel.

I had a 9:15 appointment with my realtor the next morning and found myself wondering where in hell I could get breakfast on foot in time to get back to the motel in time. I started to feel like I had made a mistake — the town did not seem walkable to me. Friends recommended Google maps and, after a long while, I managed to establish that I might be able to walk to Chestnut Cottage, a restaurant I had earmarked for a breakfast visit sometime during my stay. I lay my head on the pillow after 11:30 and woke at 5:00 AM after a sound, exhausted sleep.

I showered, washed my long gray hair and put on my best approximation of conventional clothing (black jeans, tank top, white gauze shirt, quilted jacket and spangled chartreuse billed cap) suitable for hot weather. I can manage to look slightly more respectable in the winter with the aid of long-sleeved T-shirts, wool berets, crew neck cashmere sweaters and fleece vests, but my summer wardrobe is sparse: I had bought two white gauze shirts the day before I left California from the Good Will and from an East Asian store in Berkeley.

I wrote down brief directions on a piece of paper: left on North Chambers Street, right on East Front, a “fifteen-minute walk.” I added some time because I am a slow walker and because I didn’t know exactly where I was going and headed out in what I thought was the right direction.

I passed a storefront selling salmon jerky, a shuttered bank, various forms of lodging. I saw fast food restaurants in the distance and hoped I wouldn’t have to settle for one before my first stint of house tours. I saw a doe and fawn in a steep grassy yard and some beautiful morning clouds in a blue sky. What I didn’t see was N. Chambers St.

After walking for at least fifteen minutes I concluded that I might have set off in the wrong direction so I turned around and started walking back the way I came. As I passed the jerky joint I saw a woman getting into her car. Hurrying my steps I asked if I could ask her a question.

“Yes,” she said.

“If I keep walking this way, will I get to North Chambers Street?”

“Yes.”

Relieved, I continued past my motel, found my turns and walked on deserted streets alongside Highway 101 aka E. Front St. I saw Chestnut Cottage, waited until all of the cars had passed and crossed the street.

The wooden door gave onto a foyer and a large dining room lined with booths with wooden tables in the center. Perhaps half a dozen people were eating or anticipating breakfast. A waitress led me to a large booth, set down a pint glass of ice water and asked if she could get me a beverage.

“Coffee, please.”

“Medium or dark roast?”

“Dark.”

I drank ice water and read the large menu. I was hungry after my early start and long walk in the beginning of the day’s heat. I ordered an extravagant meal of French toast stuffed with lemon curd. It came on a platter scattered with fresh blueberries, covered with generous mounds of whipped cream. Someone had dusted the slices with powdered sugar and an incongruous pitcher of syrup sat on the edge of the plate.

Really?

Ignoring the syrup, I cut into the most delicious French toast I have ever tasted, pushing aside some of the blanket of cream and spearing a blueberry in every bite. I ate slowly, finished my pint of water and my first cup of coffee, savoring the lemony cream, the soft bread, the tart fruit. I drank my way through another full pint of water and then asked for a box for my remaining French toast. I quizzed the waitress about the strongest coffee in town, but she was not a coffee drinker. I also established that the house-made cinnamon roll was iced with a brown sugar-butter combo and that it was yeast-risen. I bought one to go before leaving.

Back at my motel I brushed my hair, checked the time, and tried to recharge my camera, not knowing whether photos were permissible in the houses. At 9:15 I stepped outside my door, greeted my approaching agent and hoisted myself into his high-mounted truck.

“We have seven properties to see,” he said, handing me a sheaf of paper and a Port Angeles map.

To be continued.