Leakage from a Cluttered Mind

Last year we spent a few days in Anacortes, WA, but still had many things on our to do list for the area so returned for a couple of weeks. It’s a long drive, so I decided to take two days, and go up through central Oregon and Washington. It added two or three hours, but was more scenic than just following I5 (and it avoided the congestion of Seattle).

We left home on Monday, September 8 and stopped for dinner at a pasta restaurant on the bank of the Deschutes River in the Old Mill District. We were seated on the patio right before sundown and it was lovely.

We drove on to Redmond where we spent the night. Tuesday we continued north on Highway 97 through Yakima, picked up west bound 90 to Snoqualmie, and then bypassed Seattle by taking 203 and 2 to Everett. We arrived in Anacortes around 5pm. We had rented a small, upstairs apartment just a quarter mile from the ferry terminal. Up on a hill, it had nice views.

Wednesday morning was clear and nice, so we rode our bikes down onto the ferry and took it to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. We did a loop ride out to English Camp (a national historical park) where we looked around and had lunch. This camp plus it’s counterpart, American Camp, are quite interesting. America almost went to war with England again because a pig was shot and a treaty had an ambiguous definition of the U.S./Canada border in the San Juans. All the visitor facilities were closed for the season, but the grounds were still nice. Our ride totaled 28 miles and we were back in Anacortes by 5pm.

We didn’t feel up to a long bike ride on Thursday so we drove out to the tip of Penn Cove on Whidbey Island and then rode out to Fort Ebey followed by a ride to Coupevdlle along the shore of Penn Cove. Just 14 miles, but very picturesque.

Doing a bike ride on Orcas Island was on our list of rides to do, but we weren’t confident we were up to it, so on Friday we went back to Whidbey Island and hiked a loop trail at Ebey Landing (we also did this hike last year).

Saturday was our day to pack up and move to Sequim. Packing up was pretty quick, so we hiked a bit in nearby Washington Park and then went to an antique engines fair in Anacortes (well, Karen went to the farmer’s market, but I went to see the antique engines).

After our fill of that we took the ferry to Port Townsend and drove on to our rental in Sequim, arriving around 4pm. The little one bedroom house was located on Kit Fox Lane, which just happened to also be Runway 25. Yes, it was in a private air park, and we loved it.

Links:
— Photo gallery for Washington 2014

We wanted to get away for a day hike and had considered Woods Lake to Winnemucca Lake (too long of a drive), Pt. Reyes (hikes were too long), and Wilder Ranch in Santa Cruz (our choice last night). This morning I felt poorly enough that I didn’t want to drive very far from home, so we decided to hike in Las Trampas. I decided to hike from the Hemme Road trailhead, but unfortunately didn’t remember how steep the trail that I chose was. I thought we could go up a ways, have lunch, and then return, but after a couple of steep sections Karen let me know that she did not want to come back down that way. (And yes, it was slippery steep). So we made a 4.3 mile loop with 1,000 feet of climbing (most of it in the first mile and a half).