Day 7: Exploring Lopez Island
Tuesday, August 31, 2004

We got to sleep in a little today since we didn't have any definite plans for the day. Still, we couldn't have slept too late because the plumbing in this place is pretty noisy. All morning long we were hearing everyone taking showers plus some vague machine noises. Luckily, we are both heavy sleepers, but it does explain why they leave earplugs in the rooms.

Friday's Historic Inn provides a nice continental breakfast of cereal, freshly baked scones, yogurt, fresh melon, and orange juice. Walendo thought the coffee was particularly good, too. We served ourselves and then sat out in the patio area, where we got into a nice conversation with some other guests, a retired couple from the Seattle area who had brought their bikes on the ferries and were tooling around various islands on bike. How nice. When I mentioned that I'm a photographer, they told us about the beauty of Lopez Island and Shark Reef in particular and told us you can hop the ferries from one island to another. We hadn't considered this, but since we'd just planned on finding a pretty place to hang out today, we decided to try checking out another island instead. They even gave us their map of Lopez Island, which they didn't need anymore. We thanked them for the idea and we went our separate ways.

The inter-island ferry left in about 1.5 hours, so we wandered about the town for a little while, checking out a few art galleries. One had closed and some were less interesting than I'd hoped, but there were a couple with some nice work. In Napier Sculpture, we liked some wall sculptures by Donnie Wanner made of metal and stone that reconstructed coastal scenes. If you had a gorgeous house looking out on the coast, we figured that would be the art you'd want on the wall. Another gallery we decided was truly arty because we didn't understand much of anything in it.

After that, we loaded the car and got into the ferry queue. We had another 20 mins before loading began, so we got out and walked around the marina for a bit. (It's nice that you can park the car to reserve your spot and then get out until loading time.) We watched a stack of wood get unloaded from a barge by the crane on the pier and grabbed by a forklift waiting on the pier. What had looked like a small stack of wood when it was held by the crane became a large collection of long, heavy 8 x 8s that practically flattened the tires of the forklift. Amazing how stuff gets moved around.

Taking the ferry to the other islands was a pretty casual affair. They loaded us up in a matter of 5 minutes or so and took off with most of the ferry empty. We drove in one end of the ferry, curved all the way around the back and came back to face the back again, making it easier to unload. Even though Lopez Island is right next to San Juan, the ferry first goes to Orcas Island, then Shaw, and then Lopez, so the trip took an hour and 20 mins. When the cars loaded at Orcas, they faced them in the opposite direction, so I guess the boat docks the opposite way when they get back to Friday Harbor. We were both fascinated by how the whole system worked.

Walendo at Lopez Island restaurant

We arrived at Lopez Island and drove a short ways to Lopez Village, which our breakfast friends had suggested we check out. It's a much smaller village than Friday Harbor, if you can call it a village at all. There were two strips of stores, a grocery store, and a couple of huts selling espresso. Still, they managed to fit in two little galleries, which had some nice items. Our friends had recommended that we check out Holly B's bakery, which was supposed to be wonderful, but they were closed on Tuesdays. Doh! Instead, we had lunch at a little restaurant with seating out back looking out over the marina. Again it was a lovely, sunny day, so it was a perfect setting. Walendo had fish tacos, which he liked, and I wasn't that hungry so I had the beef barley soup, which was also quite tasty.

Lopez Village shops

We figured we should stroll around the few stretches of stores, so we did, stopping in another café/bakery looking for a little sweet item. They had "the best brownies in the world," so I had to try them. Walendo got a little pastry and we got a bag of homemade dog biscuits as a gift for our friend's dog back home, and the bill came to $11. Yikes! The brownies were good, but I wouldn't call them the world's best. After getting a sense of the little village, we continued on, driving along the pretty island. It's much like San Juan in that it's quite rural with pretty rolling hills and farmland in the interior and rugged coastline along the edge with a mixture of beautiful expensive houses and more modest homes. After a few minutes we came to the parking area for Shark Reef, so packed up our books and camera stuff and walked out to the coast.

Ellen at Shark Reef

It was a very pretty scene, with a rocky coastline and another island (Shaw, I think) just across the way, maybe a mile or two across. The tide was rushing north and the inlet was relatively narrow so it seemed like a heavy flow of water, enough that boats seemed to have to fight to get through it. We found a relatively comfortable spot on the rocks and settled in for a while. Just below us was a quieter area protected by a ring of kelp and very quickly we saw some harbor seals popping their heads out and then diving under, rolling their butts up out of the water in the process. They would disappear for a while and then come back, so it was fun to keep an eye out for them. Of course lots of gulls were around and we saw a few other birds that would bob on the water and then dive all the way underwater in search of a fish. Boats went by on a regular basis, so just sitting there, there was plenty to watch.

Seal climbing onto seaweed

We both read and watched and relaxed. As pretty as the scene was, it didn't really lend itself to interesting pictures because of the bright light and the large spread of water everywhere. The seals were far enough away that even with my 300mm lens, I couldn't get very interesting pictures, although I did document it when one seal tried to climb up onto a heavy tangle of bull whip kelp - he even succeeded for a short while. Walendo took a documenting shot with the Elph, just to remember what it looked like.

While browsing in a used bookstore this morning, Walendo had picked up a book about the history of the computer and Silicon Valley called Fire in the Valley, and he became fascinated with it. He just ripped through it while we lounged on the rocks. (I had this image of that book sitting on the shelf for month after month collecting dust, losing hope of being bought, and then one day it gets picked out and, not only that, is read cover to cover in a day. How exciting for it!) I started reading Life of Pi, which I'm enjoying quite a bit as well.

At around 5 or so, we decided to head out and meander around the rest of the island. The last inter-island ferry left at 7pm. We needed to be there around 6:40, so we had plenty of time. We slowly drove along the narrow roads, checking out the farms and the pretty scene. As I was driving along, Walendo rechecked the ferry schedule and noticed that another ferry left at 5:55 and went directly to San Juan Island. I had missed it because it wasn't marked as an inter-island ferry, it came out of Anacortes and just stopped at Lopez before going to San Juan Island. That meant it would be much faster (40 mins instead of 1:20) because the inter-island ferry stopped at two other islands first. It was 5:48 when we noticed this, and we were heading toward the ferry station, though we figured it would probably take more than 5 minutes to get there. We decided to try it anyway, since it could be just a few minutes late. I sped up (without going too fast), and as we got closer, we started passing a line of cars going in the opposite direction, which meant they must have just been dropped off by the ferry. As we continued, there were more and more cars coming, which was a good sign. If there were enough unloading and more getting on, we could make it. Sure enough, we pulled up to the ferry station and the last car was just heading onto the ferry. We stopped and spoke to the woman, telling her we hadn't had time to buy a ticket. She radioed the people on the ferry, who granted us the extra minute we needed to get our ticket. (It cost $16 for the car plus one passenger.) We cruised onto the boat and within a minute, it took off. How cool is that!

While on the ferry, we noticed that most other cars were facing in the opposite direction. If they were going to unload forward, we'd have to back out first. And sure enough, that's exactly what happened. We docked at Friday Harbor, and the few cars from Lopez were the first ones off, backing down the pier. So we managed to get a ride with the minimum of waiting on either end. It was kind of fun just because it had all fallen into place without our planning it.

We dropped some stuff in the room and went out to look for a casual dinner. We wound up at San Juan Brewing Company, a bar and restaurant right on the water. I had a homemade chicken pot pie that was decent, and Walendo had a burger that he liked. He especially liked the home brew he had, even though he's not a big beer drinker. After dinner we stopped by the ice cream place again for my chocolate cone, and then we settled in at the hotel. The sky had started to cloud over and had the makings of a much prettier sunset, but I wasn't up for driving out to the west side of the island again. Oh well. I did go out to take some shots of the hotel and got into a conversation with the staff. She asked why I was taking pictures and when I told her it was to accompany my journal, she loved the idea of adding photos to a journal and said she hadn't thought of that. It was nice how enthusiastic she was.

So now I'm recording the days events and Walendo continues to blitz through his book about Silicon Valley, every now and then remarking about something he knew — a person, an early computer, a place, an association. Funny that something we lived through is now "history."

Tomorrow we'll take the mid-morning ferry back to the mainland and begin our drive back home. We'll stop at the Woodburn outlet malls again. My fleece outfit has been a huge hit on this trip and considering what a deal I got, I want to pick up some more. Walendo of course will have no trouble finding something else to buy there too. So this is really the end of the vacation part of the trip, and the rest will be traveling. It's been a very pleasant vacation, very pretty and very relaxing.

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