Only in America: Outdoor lockbox for guns at official buildings

Only in America

This box sits outside a courthouse in a small American town. Anyone registered to carry a concealed firearm may also register to acquire a key for this box, and the sherrif is required by law to give it to him unless he has particular and documented cause not to. The key allows him entry into the box, where there are eight further lockers, each with its own key, in which to secure a weapon. It allows any law-abiding citizen to carry his firearm up to, but not inside, the courthouse. Law enforcement officials in uniform are permitted to carry weapons into the courthouse when acting in their official duty, so this box is not for them.

This is just one of those things that's probably not common elsewhere in the world.

Vacating

Manressa Castle Sitting Room

Omaha and I are vacating. We have momentarily abandoned the children to the house and Lisakit's care while we retreated to Port Townsend and two nights at Manresa Castle, a 19th Century mansion that has been renovated into a hotel. It has few modern amenities-- no swimming pool or exercise room, a tiny bar and a small restaurant are it. The rooms are small and have baseboard heat, the beds tall and hard, the bathrooms tiled in that 19th-century sterile way popularized at the Battle Creek Sanitarium. But it's beautiful here, with all the wood and silk and velvet, the hardwood floors and oriental rugs, ceramic cats and coats of arms.

We arrived in Port Townsend, a lovely little lumber, fishing, and shipping town out on the Washington State peninsula, It's main attraction is that it sticks out in the sound and there's water on three sides, so one side belongs to industry, one to the tourist industry, and one used to belong to a military installation in case this far end of the nation was ever invaded by, well, Canada I guess. Despite being of "immense military and strategic value" and having upwards of 12 batteries of artillery installed, the base never fired a shot in anger, and was used in WWII mostly as a training base for soldiers heading into Pacific land battles.

Omaha and I dined at the Belmont, a fairly nice restaurant that specialized in riching up the best salmon the state could provide. It was delicious, but in that heavy sauces and flavorings way one normally only reads about. Our waitress's name was "Misuko." And she looked like a Misuko, if shorter than I imagined.

We went back to the hotel. It was snowing. We went to the bar and wrote. Well, Omaha wrote. I fumbled around for 2000 words and then gave up, realizing the story wasn't going anywhere.

Jefferson County Courthouse

Port Townsend tries to be as "Victorian" as it can, revelling in its 1890-1910 period, and the buildings are all that beautiful and well-maintained as can be. We parked at the far end and walked up the hill to visit the courthouse and the post office, both of which are over a century old and look it.

We descended into town and went to Undertown Coffee, where we met the very energetic ShunraCat and her husband and had a lovely conversation that went on for two hours. It was good to see her in person, as we'd been tweeting at each other for as long as I can remember. They were such lovely people! And they recommended the Owl Sprit, a lovely little cafe up an alleyway that had the most amazing mini burgers-- I had one with tatziki and one with bacon, and they were both delicious. I have to try that at home. I bet the kids would eat them up. They also had a decent iced tea, and even some good hummous.

Omaha and I continued our walk, enjoying the ambience and each other's company. It's barely 4C out in the daytime, but we still stopped for ice cream, bought some knicknacks, and stopped by the tea shoppe and the candle shoppe. There were a lot of other tourists on the road.

The sun went down early. By 5pm it was time to head back to the hotel.