Visiting the setting of Mistaken

We traveled north to Port Angeles, Washington this week for a family reunion, and I had the opportunity to revisit some of the locations I used in MISTAKEN. For those of you who have read the book, I thought you might enjoy seeing how these places look today. Above, I’m posing on the lovely walkway located on Port Angeles’ Hollywood Beach. If you remember in the story, Hollywood Beach was a run-down area in the 1920s, filled with boarding houses and low-income housing. Today it boasts hotels, restaurants, and a nice park. Hollywood Beach overlooks the Port Angeles harbor, sheltered by Ediz Hook, or “the spit” as the locals call it.

The photo above is looking up at the bluff above Crescent Beach. This is where Laurie and Daniel first met. Can you imagine negotiating that in the dark?

Much of the coastline is rugged and rocky, as you see above (Salt Creek Recreation Area)–so you can see why Johnny and his friends chose to land in sheltered bays like Crescent Beach and Freshwater Bay.

Crescent Beach is a lovely sandy beach. Much of the beach is privately owned, so if you visit, be careful to stay in the public areas.

The rumrunners in Mistaken also do some of their landings at Freshwater Bay, which is located between Crescent Bay and Port Angeles. Rather than sand, the beach is covered in cobbles, but it’s still a protected harbor.

And, of course… the Clallam County Courthouse, where Daniel spent a little more time than he’d have preferred, thanks to his association with Laurie and Johnny.

The other scenes from Mistaken, like Larson’s Drugs, the telephone exchange, and Laurie’s home–exist only in my imagination, though I did base them on real locations. There are a series of old stores in downtown Port Angeles, any of which could have been Larson’s. And the telephone exhange did exist, but no longer sits on its original location.

Which scenes in Mistaken captured your imagination? Do the photos match up with how you pictured these locations?