Coops Away: Our Time in Washington

We’ve left Vancouver, WA and are headed north to Mt. Vernon, WA. We have to pass through the little village of Seattle and they sure know how to greet a traveler with a lot of their neighbors to guide them (slowly) through the city. Fortunately, we don’t have that far to go and we arrive at our destination only mildly fatigued. As we are getting settled in, two golf carts come down the road and into our space and out step 3 couples that we are good friends with in our Texas park. Oh yes, we knew they would be here, but it was great to be greeted with friends.

One of our reasons to visit this fine area besides our friends, was to meet up with my step-sister Susan. She lives about 35 miles away on Lummi Island. Susan did come out to visit with our friends and us at the campground and we had a wonderful dinner and visit. The next day, we were off to visit her on the island. The plan is to park the car on the mainland and to walk onto the ferry and cross. She will pick us up on the other side.

This is some of the artwork from the Lummi Indians on the mainland side near the ferry crossing.

We crossed over and Susan picked us up giving us a tour around the island.

I had her stop on the north side of the island so I could take this picture of some reef netters. Two things to note are the driftwood logs on the beach and the San Juan Islands in the background.

This is a closeup of a couple of netters working together. Netting can only be done by the Lummi Tribe. This is an agreement with the native Americans that dates back to the 1930’s, allowing them to net salmon.

Continuing our tour, we came across this poor boat.

Note that it is tied to the tree. No it’s not tied with a rope, but with a branch from the tree.

We have finished the tour and returned to Susan’s condo.

This is a view from her deck. She tells me that if it were a clear day, we would be able to see Vancouver Island off in the distance.

Hey! Is lunch ready?

To my step brothers; do you know that look?

Meet my sister, Susan.

We will spend almost 3 weeks in Mt. Vernon and will get together with Susan several times. It was great to be able to spend so much time with her. We miss you already, Susan.

While at Mt. Vernon, I had the opportunity to play 5 different golf courses. I showed up early to the first club I played and found the parking lot empty. I went in wondering if they were open. “Oh yes, we’re open, most don’t show up for another hour or so.” Ok, so off I went. The first hole I looked at was elevated and hard to see where I was going. The only thing I could think was “what have I gotten myself into?”

If you can make it out, in the background is Mt. Baker a feature seen from many golf courses here in the area. I think my total hit around 188 after these 5 courses.

Well it’s that time of the year and for once we both remembered that our anniversary was coming soon. So, we made plans to go to dinner at a good seafood restaurant on Anacortes. As we were driving around enjoying the island, we came across this:

And no, there is no water under this paddle wheeler called W T Preston. This boat was used to clear snags in the local rivers. And because the rivers were shallow in many places that this boat needed to go,

With the paddle wheel and the shallow draft of the boat, this was the boat needed and it saw service up until 1986.

You can see that even the washing machine was a bit old fashion.

Yes, this was a treasure to find on our way to a fabulous anniversary dinner. Yes, the dinner was good and the number of years we celebrated? 48!

Another little tour we took from our stop in Mt. Vernon was out to the Washington Pass along Highway 20. We had considered taking the RV and going through this pass to get to our next stop in BC. So you might consider this to be an exploratory as to whether it would be feasible to take the RV.

First let me tell you that the RV ain’t climbing this hill. We are at the top (5,476 feet) looking down at the two lane road that makes the turn and starts down. Considering we started at sea level, you can understand why this is not going to be the preferred route.

We did not come alone. We had a native Washingtonian giving us the low down as we traveled this most picturesque drive.

She kind of does look like a native, eh? Here’s Pat with her good friend Tara, our guide.

One of our first stops was to grab this picture. I just love a good water fall and this is a good one.

Our next overlook was that of Blue Lake.

What can I tell you all of the pictures came out looking like green Lake. This I feel was the best of the lot. Have you noticed those bits of white in some of these pictures? Yes, it is snow! And, yes it is July.