Well hello there! I have great news! I am typing this on my recently returned computer with stable DSL internet. I don’t hardly know how to contain all my joy. To celebrate I’ve updated the look of the blog just a bit. Hope you like it.
Vacation Recap – Part 1
I started my vacation by driving up from my home in Northern California to a relative’s house outside of Seattle. I left at the unearthly hour of 4:15 am and drove all day. I would have reached my destination MUCH earlier if I hadn’t gotten stuck in the 2:30 pm Portland traffic. This was a Thursday mind you. Why was the freeway choked full of motorists on a Thursday early afternoon? Were they all taking a long weekend? If so, I think I need to move to Portland. After inching my way, admiring all the details of the road construction, I finally escaped after two agonizing hours. Unfortunately this scenic delay cost me the trip to Wolf Haven, a sanctuary for wolves. Curses upon you Portland!
Once I arrived in Snohomish, I spent the evening chatting and catching up with my relatives and playing with their dogs. It’s wonderful to reconnect with family that you haven’t seen or spent a lot of time with and it doesn’t feel awkward or like strange at all. After a glorious night sleep in a huge bed all to myself, a wonderful breakfast, and more family time, I zipped up to Burlington, Washington to pick up Bethany.
We grabbed camping supplies from her storage unit and hit up Wal-Mart for food. It felt like old times to wander around Wal-Mart discussing what we wanted to eat for our trip. Poor Bethany was trying to get used to having every variety and anything and everything she needed within one store, after being in Egypt for the past year. We then drove on out to Anacortes to Washington Park to set up our tent while it was still dry out.
After setting up the tent we wandered out to the campground/park beach and sat on a log watching the ocean waves, chatting, and in general just enjoying being together after a year in different hemispheres. As it was starting to get dark we walked back up to the campsite and cooked a tasty dinner. I fried up some diced potatoes, veggie-meat sausage patties, and steamed some mixed vegetables. So good. We then crawled into the tent because I we were exhausted.
We woke up to rain during the night and it pretty much continued off and on throughout Saturday. We didn’t let that stop us too much, and we worked out a pretty good strategy. When it would rain hard, we would drive, and when it stopped (or at least calmed down to a drizzle) we would get out and wander on the beach or sight see.
First stop was Deception Pass, and the scenery was amazing. I couldn’t believe how green and lush everything was, although with all the rain we were getting I was starting to understand.
View from Deception Pass Bridge.
We had a great time strolling down the rocky beach and looking at all the scenery and different rocks.
This pile of rocks was evidently sorted by someone with the pattern of a rainbow in mind. I really loved the subtle shifting of colors and HAD to grab a photo of it.
We drove down the road quite a ways into the next island, stopping at different state parks, including an old military fort with a cute lighthouse. It was raining pretty steadily, so I didn’t bother trying to take any pictures. It was a great day sight seeing, but it was also nice to hole up in our tent at the end of the day and play games
Stay tuned for Part 2!
mulled thoughts...and cider 