Summer in Anacortes, Washington

Summer in Anacortes                                                            July and August, 2016

We have been parked at Fidalgo Bay RV Park in Anacortes, WA, since July 8.  This is our “home port” and we wanted to spend summer here, knowing that the weather would be fabulous.  And it has been!!  

I think we’ve had rain once, during the night, since we’ve been here.  My weather channel app can hardly deal with all this good weather, so one morning I got this severe weather warning!  "Very warm" temperatures were in the low 80's!

Since the first of August we’ve been in this RV site, which includes more parking and this little cabana.  Having a place to secure our bikes and a picnic table under a roof are big pluses.  Fidalgo Bay is behind those little “park models” across the street.

One of the advantages to being parked here is our close proximity to the Tommy Thompson Trail.  The rail-trail follows the inactive corridor of the short-lived Seattle and Northern Company line, which was built in 1890 when Anacortes boomed as a promised hub of a transcontinental railway.  (Which obviously never happened).  The route is named for Tommy Thompson, a local railroad hobbyist who hand-built the Anacortes railway. He operated the popular six-block narrow-gauge railway for some 25 years until his death in 1999. 

Just east of the RV Park, the blacktop trail crosses the lower end of Fidalgo Bay to connect to March Point.  The distance from Abe, around the little March Point Peninsula and back again is just short of 10 miles.  Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays we ride with several friends from church and the conversations over coffee are worth the ride! We ride west into town and go all the way to the end of the street at Guemes Channel.  Then, it’s back to “Ger-A-Deli” for a coffee stop.  What a great way to start the day. 

One morning when we were walking the trail, we met the gentlemen sitting on a bench along the trail.  We stopped to talk with him and found out he walked to this point of the trail every morning, brining a bag of catfood with him.  His mission was to feed the three feral cats that live along the trail.  The cats have been neutered and spayed and were definitely feral, but they know what time he’s due and wait by this bench for him.

Like so many roadsides and hillsides, the Tommy Thompson Trail was covered with blackberry vines.  We have seen lots of folks out picking them, filling a ball cap or a bucket.  Yum!

On Wednesday and Friday evenings the city of Anacortes sponsored music at Seafarer’s Park.  We joined friends and sat on the grass and listened to the tunes.  In the background on the right you can see the refineries on March Point.  You can also see a dark-hulled sailboat anchored just off shore.  We met the sailors, a couple in their 70’s, who were spending the summer cruising on their boat.  They had dropped the anchor in the bay, dinghied in to Cap Sante Marina, and heard the music.  What a pleasant surprise for them.

Joy and her buddy Kenny came to Anacortes for “Shipwreck Day” in July.  Commercial Avenue, the main drag through town, was closed off for several blocks and became one big garage sale.  I think the original idea was for the fishermen to get rid of their excess tackle, etc., but it’s become so much more than that.  Jerry, Joy, Kenny and I had a great day wandering through all the booths and displays.  

I did find some treasures…a ukulele and some yarn.  I had a ukulele in high school and wanted to take it up again.  I was delighted to find this lovely “concert ukulele” (a size designation, not a quality description) in a pretty shade of green.

The very next weekend we were off to Portland, OR, to deliver Joy’s 2015 Christmas present.  We drove to Vancouver, WA, on Thursday night so we could get our tow hitch repaired Friday, before we drove in to Portland.  Since we had the day to kill while the work was done, we drove 50 miles north up I-5 to explore Mount St. Helens. 

We had not been here before and will need to go again, since the mountain was fogged in.  However, we did explore the museums and found the story fascinating.  The picture of the eruption is a “photo of a photo” from one of the museums.  A hiker on Mt. Adams was captured watching the eruption, which occurred on May 18, 1980, at 8:32 a.m.  It was the deadlist and most economically destructive volcanic event

in the history of the United States. Fifty-seven people were killed; 250 homes, 47 bridges, 15 miles (24 km) of railways, and 185 miles (298 km) of highway were destroyed. A massive debris avalanche triggered by an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale caused an eruption that reduced the elevation of the mountain's summit from 9,677 ft. to 8,363 ft., replacing it with a 1-mile wide horseshoe-shaped crater.  The debris avalanche was up to 0.7 cubic miles in volume.

At one of the museums we had a great of the Toutle River, making its way to the ocean from the flanks of the volcano.  You can see how the riverbed was scoured by the massive mud/rock slide that roared through the valley.

Friday night we drove in to downtown Portland and stayed at a pet-friendly hotel about 3 blocks from Joy.  Ricky, her roommate was a maintenance man at this hotel, and made the arrangements for us.  It was lovely to meet Joy and then walk to dinner.  Smokey was perfectly content hanging out in her new digs and wasn’t four miles away at the La Quinta where we’ve stayed in the past.

Saturday we worked on Joy’s Christmas present…put up some shelves in her dining room.  Joy and I had great fun arranging all her treasures!  You might even recognize some of her pieces.  She is becoming the family historian and loves to have old pieces from my family and Jerry’s.  I think I’ve found a place to park all our old photos!  Yay!  Anyway, I think Jerry did a great job putting up the shelves and they look superb!!  Of course, since we had the pickup and Joy doesn’t have a vehicle, we were able to assist with other chores, too. 

It wasn’t all hard work in Portland.  We had an easy walk to sushi, Powell Books, and Scandals, Joy’s hangout.  She has an amazing group of friends and it was great getting to know them.

Sunday we were off to the grocery store.  Ordinarily when Joy gets groceries, she rides the bus back to her apartment.  Taking advantage of having the pickup she was able to get some of the big stuff.  As we walked in to the grocery store we saw this lovely orange bike display, known as “Biketown”.  Biketown is Portland's bike share program, launching in July 2016 with 1,000 bikes at 100 stations across downtown and several neighborhoods. The system was designed for quick trips with convenience in mind, and it’s a fun and affordable way to get around.  For $2.50 a day you can rent a bike for a jaunt.  Think it will catch on???

Jerry has been working on becoming an “Elk” this summer.  That might seem strange to you, but in our RV travels it has become apparent that Elks Lodges have RV parking at many of their locations.  In small to middle-sized towns we think this might be handy.  Certainly in Visalia, the Elks Lodge RV parking, while not lovely, would be very convenient for us.  It was rather ironic that our hotel in downtown Portland began its life in the early 1900’s as an “Elks Temple”.  Ricky gave us a tour of this elegant old building from the rooftop apiary (four bee hives) to the basement where there was once gym with a huge pool.  Jerry is standing near the front entrance…very fancy!

Church friends Maury and Helene Fink invited us to join them for a day of exploring in Sidney.  We walked onto the ferry and made one stop in Friday Harbor, as we made our way west through the islands.  You can see our ferry at the Sidney dock.  It was a glorious day to be on the water and to wander through Sidney.  We even found a small distillery near the marina and ferry dock in which to do a little tasting.  Interesting…I guess, but we didn’t find anything to purchase.  

The Sidney waterfront was beautiful and full of interesting artwork including these handsome, lifelike statues!

The Anacortes Arts Festival took place the first weekend in August.  Once again, the northern 12 blocks of Commercial Avenue were closed off.  Booths displaying all sorts of arts and crafts filled the street.  At the Port building there was an impressive juried art show, and at three locations along the street there were bandstands.  During the three days, a wide variety of live music was presented.  Dick Shirk knew many of the groups and directed us to which were the best.  Friday night we listened to this band from north Seattle, made up of music teachers, at the venue right in front of the dry dock on the channel. 

Saturday morning, the sweet little town of La Conner held their annual Vintage Car and Boat Show.  Fortunately Dick and his buddy Sterling came over, too, so Jerry and someone to discuss nuts and bolts with.  I wandered, looking for the quirky and funny and found this interesting old car.  The license plate bracket says, “Good-bye tension, hello pension!”  Yep!!

After church Sunday morning, the Senior Center Ukulele Group (to which I had belonged for about 3 weeks) gave a concert at the main stage of the Arts Festival.  Vicki, who got me involved in this, and I stood in the back so I don’t think anyone noticed I could only play four chords!  Fun, though.

I mentioned Tommy Thompson Trail earlier and realized I didn’t have very many good photos, so I took off on my bike yesterday to improve my collection!  The eastern leg of the trail runs between the RV Park and March Point, which has two refineries, Tesoro and Shell.  Early in Anacortes history this little peninsula had farms and a lovely bathing beach.  Now these two huge refineries dominate the landscape

The views of Padilla Bay, looking toward the east side of the bay are spectacular, even gazing across the mudflats.  At low tide, as it was in this photo, the mudflats and sand bars were quite apparent.  Mount Baker, looming in the background, was just appearing out of the clouds.  The boat was carefully following the buoys to stay in the dredged Swinomish Channel as it made its way toward La Conner.

We spent an afternoon wine tasting in Woodinville with Dick Shirk and his friend Sterling from California.  Both of these guys are knowledgeable about wine and were great guides.  Woodinville has “strip malls” of tasting rooms and so we could walk from site to site. 

Of course, one of our favorite activities while we are in Anacortes is attending Anacortes Lutheran Church.  This summer every Wednesday evening we gathered at one of the Anacortes city parks for a picnic.  The last Wednesday included a corn boil and a worship service at Washington Park, which faces Guemes Channel and the San Juans.  A lovely setting.  

We cooked 60 ears of corn, fresh from the field, and had maybe half a dozen left over.  We will miss the wonderful fellowship and this great church. 

This photo is another shot from the RV Park.  You can just see the moon rising over March Point.  We’ve had some very pretty evenings here.  It’s so pleasant to sit outside without being attached by mosquitos.

I have to include a recent photo of Lauren.  I crocheted her this “market bag” which she took with her when she and Jill went to Target.  She also took “Little Baby” so she needed to take her bag for food!  So cute!

We lost Smokey on August 10.  This photo is one of the last I took of her, doing what she loved best… getting a good tummy rub.  We will sure miss her and the bus just doesn’t seem the same.  We won’t get another cat, though.

We leave Anacortes on Sunday, August 28, bound for Fairview Illinois.  We won’t return to the beautiful Northwest until next May, but will have many adventures in many new places.  Stay tuned!