Orcas Island, WA — Southern Oregon

Yesterday we explored Orcas Island, the most populous of the San Juan Islands between Seattle and Victoria, British Columbia. We drove up to Anacortes to take the ferry over. Berck spent the whole ferry ride with his face in the wind; it was a little too chilly for me.

We drove around to Moran State Park and drove to the top of Mt. Constitution, an impressive rise 2400 feet above Puget Sound. They say on a clear day you can see all the way to Mt. Rainier. It was clear where we are…the San Juan Islands get sun most of the year in contrast to dreary Seattle, but there were clouds covering the mainland’s coast.

Next we visited some waterfalls and then hiked around one of the lakes, pretty big lakes for an island. We drove back to the ferry dock and the only restaurant we’d seen all day. It was a packed dining room of the Orcas Hotel, full we discovered because Thursday was two-for-one night. They were full of reservations, but fortunately for us the bar was empty, though not for long. We enjoyed some delicious salmon and lamb and some local brews. Then we left and pulled the car around to take the next ferry back.

Except no one else was waiting. I’d read the ferry schedule wrong, looking at the Sat./Sun. section instead of Mon.-Fri. The next ferry scheduled was for 10:50 p.m., but that was only on Fridays. The last ferry had left 10 minutes earlier. We were stuck for the night. And our tent was set up in Jenifer’s backyard drying out, our sleeping bags in her guest room.

Fortunately, Jenifer had loaned us her info book on the islands, in which was listed every hotel and bed-n-breakfast on the island. I called the cheapest one ($70, yikes!) and got directions. The owner met us in the office (I’d talked to his son on the phone). He had just bought the place and was still giddy about it. There was only one other room taken, so he said, “Tell you what, just for fun I’ll give you one of the ocean view rooms for the price of the cheaper ones.” He even gave us a king bed. Ahhh… a bed.

The ocean view didn’t do us a whole lot of good because it was well past dark when we arrived, and we had to rise at 5:30 a.m. to make the 7 a.m. ferry. It was raining. We’ve been very lucky; it didn’t rain on us at all exploring Seattle or Orcas, just when we were driving.

After stopping by Jenifer’s house to pack up our stuff, we got back on the road. We’re racing the clock now, trying to get to San Jose tonight so that a guy in San Francisco can see if he can weld our cracked header pipe back together tomorrow. Otherwise, he’s not open until Tuesday.

So we’re on the way back now. We gave up on Vancouver. We’ll have to stop there when we move to Alaska, I guess.

We ran into nutso traffic at 2 p.m. around Portland that put us back some. It was raining, which may have had something to do with it. I’d hate to see the city at rush hour!

There’s something about Washington and Oregon drivers. They spread out over four lanes all going about five miles an hour over the speed limit. It drives Berck batty because he’s got to weave crazily around them to go faster than they are. “It’s not that they’re bad drivers; they just don’t care!” Maybe they need to drink more coffee.

It’s true about Seattle…every street corner has a Starbucks. And if there’s not one, there’s a Tully’s or a Seattle’s Best. I guess you’ve got to drink coffee to keep warm in the constant drizzle. We passed a Starbucks by the fishmarket that had a line going out the door and down the block, and as we walked down the street, we passed several people heading toward it saying things like, “Aw, man, look at the line! That’ll take all day!” I don’t know why they were so keen on that particular Starbucks…there were plenty a block away nearly empty. Maybe it was the historic first Starbucks or something?’d