sweet little houses – …Brave Horatio followed after

Sarah and Erik gave us a gift certificate for whale watching–not last Christmas, but the one before. I was in school, we wanted to upgrade to an all day adventure, and I consistently forget to check my email. So almost two years went by and we opted for the more easily scheduled half- day trip.

We were excited to get it all figured out.

Maya’s Legacy is on San Juan Island. They leave from either Friday Harbor or Snug Harbor, depending on the tour, the weather, and the whales.

The people at Maya’s were wonderful. First they scheduled a second trip for the Sunday we wanted. Then they quickly called back letting us know they could make it into an all day trip. Perfect!

We started planning.

Bill scheduled our ferry and I reserved our campsite.

Bill had a Pinniped show at the Olympia Farmer’s Market on Friday, so we left earlyish on Saturday, lattes in hand.

I continue to be pleased with our habit of getting Brave Horatio ready for the next trip each time we return. I also like my decision to designate some clothes as teardrop clothes and keep them ready to go in my little cabinet. This time I swapped out some shorts and swapped in more tights and some rain gear. Quick and easy.

Bill continues to pack his side for each trip. Works for him.

Coffee and Anacortes exploration

Traffic was light and we got to Anacortes with time to spare. We’d never looked around before so we got another coffee and cruised.

Nothing like Penguin Coffee on your way to watch whales!

We found a Farmer’s Market and a parking spot by city hall. There are full body portraits of past mayors on the wall by the sidewalk. I’ve never seen that before. A little history right in your face. Kind of neat.

Note the portraits of Anacortes Mayors painted on the building wall. Maybe that’s a judge above the entryway?

We walked through the market. I recommend it if you’re up that way. Looked like lots of good prepared food, veg, cider and art.

Bill spotted a boat. It was a BIG boat and pretty well hidden behind a building. Of course he knew it. (Bill is really interested in boats, particularly work boats). The WT Preston is a steam powered paddle-wheel snagboat. She pulled snags and other debris from the Puget Sound (Olympia to Blaine) from 1929-1981. She’s enjoying a land based retirement as part of the Anacortes Maritime Heritage Center.

We spent an enjoyable few minutes in this small-but-nice museum and I left with a new book–Bijaboji is Betty Lowman Carey’s account of her solo trip from Anacortes to Ketchican rowing her dugout canoe. Betty was 22 when she made this trip in 1937. Perfect for this trip.

On the ferry

Brave Horatio on his first ferry ride. Windy, windy, windy…but once on island, the weather turned kind.

Spot 10 is one of the few at San Juan County Park that is not strictly tent only. It turned out to be a beautiful spot, to one side of the big meadow that overlooks the water. There’s a path from the meadow to a sweet little beach. (The larger, but still small kayak-launch cove is down the hill and around the corner. It’s a small park.)

I found out later that my niece and grand-niblings camp here every August with a couple other families. They love this park and I understand why.

The only new gear we had were a couple collapsible canvas buckets we thought might make nice reusable trash and recycle bins and help reduce our reliance on plastic.

San Juan Island has so much art!

On the way to San Juan Park we passed by Kevin Roth’s sculptures. These little houses made from cement mixers are too marvelous. I wanted to be six again and move in.

Kevin Roth Sculptures

Fine art in a cement mixer turned goldfish house!

San Juan Sculpture Garden

We drove to Roche Harbor and walked around the San Juan Sculpture garden. Another wonderful surprise on this beautiful island. The sculptures ranged from joyous to whimsical to contemplatively beautiful. Slowly spinning the five prayer wheels after adding our hopes to each brought us to a peaceful meditative frame of mind. Perfect for this short vacation.