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Friday Harbor to Vancouver, via Seattle
Jul. 28th, 2015 10:33 pmOn Wednesday night, shortly after I wrote my last entry, once it became fully dark we went down to the docks. ASC and the boys went rowing, in the hopes of seeing bioluminescence, while I stayed on the docks and joined a group of students who were "night lighting": sending down an electric light into the water to see what might be attracted. I think that we were very lucky: a huge nereus worm swam around and around, there was a salmon migration and one swam into the net held by one of the students - I don't know who was more surprised, him or the salmon, and best of all, a harbor seal swam by really close: you could count each of his whiskers!
Our last full day on San Juan Island was spent at the north end, thanks to a kind neighbour who lent usher car. We started at English Camp, where the British garrison lived during the joint Anglo-American occupation of the island from 1849-1871 until the Kaiser's arbitration awarded the San Juan Island s to the United States rather than to Canada, then walked up Young Hill for a fantastic view of Haro Strait across to British Columbia, and finally visited the resort of Roche Harbor, clearly where you go if you have a yacht. We found three geocaches, which pleased A greatly.
We left Friday Harbor in the rain, similar to what we had woken up to on our first morning there. The trip back to the mainland was uneventful, although this time we knew to choose seats around a table with a jigsaw puzzle. I knitted and occasionally helped the others, and we completed the puzzle as the ferry drew in to port at Anacortes. Once we disbarred, we quickly found the rental car agent, who took us in a pick-up truck into the actual town of Anacortes ("salmon canning capital of the world"), where we spent much longer than anticipated actually getting the rental car. Part of that was despite ADC having called to confirm, they didn't have a full-sized sedan that could take five suitcases, so we had to take a midi-SUV, which needed its oil changed before being driven to California. We went to have lunch - which was very nice - but took about twice as long as we thought it would. Clearly the Pacific North West lives at a different tempo than the East Coast. As a result, we only made a brief stop at Deception Bridge, instead of a proper hike, on our way to IB and E's place in Bellevue.
It was lovely to see them again, after such a long time. IB was in ADC's class in high school, and he has known E since the army, before they became a couple. Their eldest daughter, Y, is eight months older than A, and their second daughter, AM, is the same age as S. They also have a much younger daughter, N. The five children got on amazingly well together, considering that they had't seen each other in about five years. Some of the time they split into a pair and a trio, other times they were all together, but they all played nicely.
Saturday in Seattle began with pouring rain, so we got up slowly, had pancakes for breakfast and only left for Pike Place Market aound 11:00. As well as having a late lunch there, we bought provisions for a picnic supper, while watching a Shakespeare in the Park production of Much Ado About Nothing by GreenStage. That was the highlight of the day - despite a light drizzle falling intermittently, it was not too cold, and the production was very good. There was great chemistry between Beatrice and Benedick (who was fantastic, I had him autograph my programme), and as usual, I failed to understand the possibility of Hero and Claudius having a happy ever after. Next day, while discussing the play, S said - on hearing that Kenneth Branagh had also played Benedick - that of course he had, since Hamlet and Benedick were really very similar. I think that there is definitely a seminar paper there, since I think that their main similarity was being written by a man who gave the main characters the best lines.*
Next day was much better weather, cloudy and cool but not raining (at least once we had crossed the Cascades to the east). We set off on a hike to Gold Creek Pond, where Y and I took the wrong turning and walked the loop in the other direction from everyone else. Quite frankly, I wasn't bothered, as Y knows a great deal about the local native flowers - her school has a module on them during sixth grade and she remembered a lot. I really enjoyed spotting flowers with someone who was also enthusiastic (rather than mainly humouring me and much more interested in birds). There were far more flowers around the lake than there had been on San Juan Island, and Y also identified various ferns and flowers that are not in my mini guide, so that was also very useful for the future, too. Once we were done at Gold Creek Pond, we continued to Snoqualmie Falls, a waterfall and the oldest underground hydro-electric plant in the world. The falls were quite small, since we are in the driest time of year and the past winter was very mild, but still impressive enough. After that, our hosts went to an art fair, and we went shopping, to stock up for our road trip south.
Monday was devoted to Mt St Helens. The forecast being for warmer weather now that the weekend was over, we all wore shorts, forgetting that we would be significantly higher than in Seattle - and we weren't dressed warmly enough. That is my only complaint, though - the views of the mountain were incredible, and visibility improved as the day went on and as we went higher. We went to three visitor centres, one telling the story of the 1980 volcanic eruption, one about the return of the forest (much more quickly than expected), and one about the current monitoring and observation of the mountain and its volcano. Each one was at a different altitude with different flowers. I found the human stories of the people who survived very moving, and the differences between the treatment of public and private land in the aftermath was very interesting. Public land became the Mt St Helens National Volcanic Monument, and was left to recover with almost no human intervention, while on private land, which was largely owned by logging companies, the first order of the day was to salvage as much of the lumber from the trees blown down by the lateral blast of the mountainside as possible.
We were tired and hungry by the time we reached our final destination of the day, Vancouver WA. After checking in, we went in search of a restaurant, and found a very pleasant Hawaiian place called Tommy O's. Everyone was very happy with their choice, and especially with their desserts.
* Except for Romeo and Juliet, there Mercutio has the best lines.
Our last full day on San Juan Island was spent at the north end, thanks to a kind neighbour who lent usher car. We started at English Camp, where the British garrison lived during the joint Anglo-American occupation of the island from 1849-1871 until the Kaiser's arbitration awarded the San Juan Island s to the United States rather than to Canada, then walked up Young Hill for a fantastic view of Haro Strait across to British Columbia, and finally visited the resort of Roche Harbor, clearly where you go if you have a yacht. We found three geocaches, which pleased A greatly.
We left Friday Harbor in the rain, similar to what we had woken up to on our first morning there. The trip back to the mainland was uneventful, although this time we knew to choose seats around a table with a jigsaw puzzle. I knitted and occasionally helped the others, and we completed the puzzle as the ferry drew in to port at Anacortes. Once we disbarred, we quickly found the rental car agent, who took us in a pick-up truck into the actual town of Anacortes ("salmon canning capital of the world"), where we spent much longer than anticipated actually getting the rental car. Part of that was despite ADC having called to confirm, they didn't have a full-sized sedan that could take five suitcases, so we had to take a midi-SUV, which needed its oil changed before being driven to California. We went to have lunch - which was very nice - but took about twice as long as we thought it would. Clearly the Pacific North West lives at a different tempo than the East Coast. As a result, we only made a brief stop at Deception Bridge, instead of a proper hike, on our way to IB and E's place in Bellevue.
It was lovely to see them again, after such a long time. IB was in ADC's class in high school, and he has known E since the army, before they became a couple. Their eldest daughter, Y, is eight months older than A, and their second daughter, AM, is the same age as S. They also have a much younger daughter, N. The five children got on amazingly well together, considering that they had't seen each other in about five years. Some of the time they split into a pair and a trio, other times they were all together, but they all played nicely.
Saturday in Seattle began with pouring rain, so we got up slowly, had pancakes for breakfast and only left for Pike Place Market aound 11:00. As well as having a late lunch there, we bought provisions for a picnic supper, while watching a Shakespeare in the Park production of Much Ado About Nothing by GreenStage. That was the highlight of the day - despite a light drizzle falling intermittently, it was not too cold, and the production was very good. There was great chemistry between Beatrice and Benedick (who was fantastic, I had him autograph my programme), and as usual, I failed to understand the possibility of Hero and Claudius having a happy ever after. Next day, while discussing the play, S said - on hearing that Kenneth Branagh had also played Benedick - that of course he had, since Hamlet and Benedick were really very similar. I think that there is definitely a seminar paper there, since I think that their main similarity was being written by a man who gave the main characters the best lines.*
Next day was much better weather, cloudy and cool but not raining (at least once we had crossed the Cascades to the east). We set off on a hike to Gold Creek Pond, where Y and I took the wrong turning and walked the loop in the other direction from everyone else. Quite frankly, I wasn't bothered, as Y knows a great deal about the local native flowers - her school has a module on them during sixth grade and she remembered a lot. I really enjoyed spotting flowers with someone who was also enthusiastic (rather than mainly humouring me and much more interested in birds). There were far more flowers around the lake than there had been on San Juan Island, and Y also identified various ferns and flowers that are not in my mini guide, so that was also very useful for the future, too. Once we were done at Gold Creek Pond, we continued to Snoqualmie Falls, a waterfall and the oldest underground hydro-electric plant in the world. The falls were quite small, since we are in the driest time of year and the past winter was very mild, but still impressive enough. After that, our hosts went to an art fair, and we went shopping, to stock up for our road trip south.
Monday was devoted to Mt St Helens. The forecast being for warmer weather now that the weekend was over, we all wore shorts, forgetting that we would be significantly higher than in Seattle - and we weren't dressed warmly enough. That is my only complaint, though - the views of the mountain were incredible, and visibility improved as the day went on and as we went higher. We went to three visitor centres, one telling the story of the 1980 volcanic eruption, one about the return of the forest (much more quickly than expected), and one about the current monitoring and observation of the mountain and its volcano. Each one was at a different altitude with different flowers. I found the human stories of the people who survived very moving, and the differences between the treatment of public and private land in the aftermath was very interesting. Public land became the Mt St Helens National Volcanic Monument, and was left to recover with almost no human intervention, while on private land, which was largely owned by logging companies, the first order of the day was to salvage as much of the lumber from the trees blown down by the lateral blast of the mountainside as possible.
We were tired and hungry by the time we reached our final destination of the day, Vancouver WA. After checking in, we went in search of a restaurant, and found a very pleasant Hawaiian place called Tommy O's. Everyone was very happy with their choice, and especially with their desserts.
* Except for Romeo and Juliet, there Mercutio has the best lines.
