san juan islands/anacortes, washington

Lunch on the street, San Juan Islands

 Tomorrow, Lord willing, we ride! Today we scouted out our point of departure and after considering three locations, decided on an area that will take us right down the main street of Old Town Anacortes. We will depart, hopefully, at 8:00 am and head to Marblemount. We are staying at the Buffalo Run Inn in Marblemount and the owner said he would leave our key under the front door mat! I’m not kidding. This is for real. You just gotta love it. 

So . . . what happened today? Breakfast burritos at Phil and Gale’s Snackwagon and off to Anacortes Harbor where we loaded the Explorer and the six of us onto the ferry that took us to Friday Harbor at San Juan Islands. That was a fun ride.

First on our Tourist Agenda was to go whale spotting. We saw none but we did see bull kelp, waves, a light house, and other tourists looking for whales. I still think the state should hire Disney to come up with some mechanical whales that swim by every hour or so, surface, blow water skyward, and return to their chargers for the hourly performances. People would feel much better about their visits, tell their friends, and bring much more business to the already busy San Juan Islands.

San Juan Islands Sculpture Park was second on the agenda. The park is touristy with many sculptures of 

various shapes, sizes, themes, and incredibly high prices. I’m sure in the right environment many of

them would look quite nice. Some of them however looked like someone took a piece of granite directly from a quarry, polished it, set it on a concert pedestal, titled it Coffee Bean Butterfly, and added a $6,200 price tag. My favorite, of course, was very kid-like and moved. Bunches of colorful bicycle wheels, chains, wooden hinged flapper-doodles, bike frames, and a crank to make it do its thing. Check it out. Most of you would have liked the very same sculpture. Of course, it was not for sale.

When we returned to Anacortes, we found bike spot, a local bike repair shop that gets a twelve out of the one out of ten rating system. The shop smell added to the overall score. The gal at bike spot, I think her
name is Carolyn and I think she is one of the owners, was very helpful, answered a number of questions, and even gave us suggestions that led us to the spot we chose for our departure tomorrow. Carolyn has been added to our growing list of special Washingtonians on our adventure.

Supper was spaghetti and salad at the Snackwagon. 

Back at the Ship Harbor Inn, Margaret and I did laundry, repacked the car top carrier, packed most of the things into the Explorer, set out everything for my bike (tools, tubes, clothes, drinks, snacks, shoes, helmet, Garmin, lights, phone, etc), packed the cooler, reorganized suitcases, and more. Now, it’s about time to go to bed. It's been a long awaited day but tomorrow . . . we ride!

I know I say this often but it’s good for every day, “This is the day the Lord has made I will rejoice and be glad in it.” I will use that as present tense today and plan on using it tomorrow as well.

This is the day . . . so is tomorrow. I’m excited to tell you about it!