On Monday morning I took the express bus downtown (the transportation modes are adding up!) and met Beryl (who I hadn’t expected to see again, but was delighted to) at the ferry terminal. I guess my modus operandi now is that when I revisit a place I do the things that were next on my list the previous time, which I would have done had I had more time. We took the ferry out to Bainbridge Island – a bedroom community, but with an island feel. I’d heard it was just a nice place to spend a day and that’s what it is! At the game I was talking about job possibilities, and all of a sudden it became critical to send an email right away – Beryl brought her computer and we went to a coffee shop and I sent off the email, and then we sat and enjoyed our coffee. We took a little nature walk, strolled the main shopping street, and took the ferry back. On my own, I went to the Seattle Aquarium – after being on and by the water, I thought it would be interesting to see what’s IN the water! Nice collection of the creatures of Puget Sound. I then went to the Peace Corps office to meet up with Linda, and we went home and had an early night, since we had an early morning to come!
As I hadn’t expected to see Beryl again, I hadn’t expected to see that much of Linda – I thought I’d get out of her hair. But when I told her my plan, she wanted to take some vacation days, and I welcomed the company. Also high on my longtime wish list were the San Juan Islands. Back at the last round-number birthday, I splurged on a Backroads trip to Hawaii, and for years I’d get the Backroads catalog and dream of going on another trip. The one that sounded most appealing was the San Juan Islands, biking and kayaking. Okay, so we didn’t bike or kayak, but the point wasn’t to do either of those, it was to go to the islands!
We took the ferry early on Tuesday morning – that ferry terminal is near Olympic Sculpture Park, so after we checked in I zipped over there to see some sculpture. The ferry ride took us through Puget Sound – which is 100 miles long, about the same as Long Island Sound. It took us past Whidbey Island, which claims to be the longest island in the country, because a Supreme Court case in 1905 or so declared Long Island a peninsula for tax purposes. I had to go to the back of the ship and ask the tour narrator about that one - she said yeah, that’s what they say, but they know Long Island is an island.
One thing that always appealed to me is that the San Juan Islands are on their own tectonic plate, the Juan de Fuca plate. So romantic! What I didn’t know is that since they are in the rain shadow of Vancouver Island, they have their own climate, different from the evergreens and mist we passed by. Much sunnier and drier – in fact, the evergreens and water along the way reminded me of Maine, but the islands had a little Midwest look to them! We had a crab cake lunch overlooking the harbor and started to walk around the town of Friday Harbor. There was an around-the-island bus about to leave, so we hopped on it.
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