During the great Northwest pilgrimage to Tacoma, there were in fact two detours. The first, from Sept 6 thru 9 north to Anacortes and the San Juan Islands. The second, Sept 22 and 23 west to Aberdeen.
Anacortes for the weekend :
After a late night Friday, what was going to be an early morning drive up the coast ended up being a rather hurried drive up the Interstate after having spent way too much time sleeping on Saturday morning. I was due to meet up with Laura & Chris at their home for dinner. It all turned out fine as I arrived around 7pm and we settled in to preparing a grilled feast. That's also where the comedy began. You see, Laura is originally from France and of course she listens with a French accent (keep that in mind). As I was cutting vegetables for the meal, I turned to her smiling and said, by the way, I have appetizers. Now say that word with a french accent. The "a" in appetizers sounds like an "ha". She looked at me quizzically and said, "you 'ave what?" I repeated and as she looked slightly horrified I realized she thought I said, smiling of course, while cutting her food, "I have hepatitis". After eventually working out the error we spent the rest of the evening laughing about it. She never did let me finish cutting those vegetables....
Sunday morning Laura, Chris and I headed down to the nearby wharf to explore the cause of a very tall mast we could see from the house, reportedly a secret America's Cup entrant being crafted at the local hull builder. After much nosing around, we found a way down to the correct dock and low and behold, the BMWOracle racing yacht was moored right there, with a plethora of support craft and a couple of staff to protect it from prying eyes. They didn't seem too concerned about our presence. I guess the important spies already know the details. It is though a trimaran, which is not currently allowed under the rules, although catamaran's have been used recently. It was truly amazing to see the size and grandeur of it - all carbon fiber. Unfortunately no photo opp was available, although you can see the mast in one of the photos I took from Laura's deck. Sunday afternoon allowed me the time to head off to see local sights including Mt Erie. Although only 1200ft, it is by far the highest point in the area and provides a great view of many of the surrounding islands and the whole town. Anacortes is actually on Fidalgo Island, although doesn't feel that way due to its size. It's well worth the visit.
Monday morning I left the car at Laura's place and loaded up the KTM for the ferry ride to San Juan Island. Luckily I had pre-arranged a couch surfer on the island because it was hard enough to carry clothes for hiking and a sleeping bag on the bike, let alone a sleeping pad or even a tent. The line for the 8.30am ferry was already long when I arrived at 8am but thankfully motorcycles not only pay less, they get preferential treatment in the line - I was directed right to the front. The hour long ride was smooth and pleasant, cruising past a variety of other islands in the San Juan group, some large and inhabited, some very small and designated wilderness. Orcas is the largest of them all with a couple of towns. San Juan has only a single town, Friday Harbor. It happens to be the hub of activity and where the ferry docks. My first task was to find the restaurant where my host worked and say Hi. Geraldina was very friendly and funnily enough that was the only time I saw her. She had to work until late and I left early the next morning. Having received a key to her apartment, I headed off to dump my gear and go exploring. It's a smallish island, about 20 miles long and ten miles wide but has many beautiful sights, some whale watching, an old Revolutionary War encampment and a variety of wilderness areas. You could easily stay a week or more just exploring by road let alone hiking.
Many thanks to Laura, Chris and Laura's daughter Tanissa for hanging out with me in Anacortes, and to Geraldina and Henry on San Juan.
Detour 2 - Aberdeen, WA: What can I say. Another couch surfing bonanza. After a strange day spent mostly without water, I left the Tacoma area about 6pm on a Monday night with a plan to meet up with Steve from Aberdeen in Olympia. The plan was to go out for drinks and then follow him and his friends back home. We hung out in a couple of bars that were all but dead on a Monday, leaving by 10pm after a none too quick song from Steve at karaoke. An hour or so later we were chatting in his cheerily quaint apartment next door to the Aberdeen Catholic Church. A very interesting discussion that went on until about 3am. Luckily the only task for Tuesday was to look around the area so the 11am wake up was fine. A quick trip to a local lookout to see town followed by a drive out to Pacific Beach and Steve's work rounded out a fairly relaxed day. We also visited a very unusual little planned town called Seaside that reminded me of The Truman Show. I should have taken photos but suspect somebody would have jumped out from behind a bush and taken the camera. That people pay high six figures to live in a place like that is interesting. We had a nice dinner with Steve's mother at a local Italian restaurant and then headed home for some movies and chocolate to round out a great day. It was great to meet Steve, Alex and Joe and to experience some of their life in Aberdeen.
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