Trip to Friday Harbor

Suddenly this blog is all about big trips we took, which doesn’t really accurately represent our normal lives, but then again, who the heck wants pictures of me running around in jammies with my morning afro? Or the hours we spend doing mundane chores and staring at computer screens?

So for now we’ll stick to interesting pictures of trips we took. At the end of summer, I had a week of unpaid leave due to library budget cuts, so Andy also took the week off (at least HIS was paid leave!) and we parked our tired little butts on San Juan Island for a week. It was glorious. We slept a lot, ate well, read books, played board games, and went hiking. I had told Andy I wanted to reach the point that I was bored and restless and actually anxious to get back to work, house projects, and other such business. That was precisely what happened!

We stayed at an AWESOME Japanese themed bed and breakfast, modeled after the Ryokan inns in Japan. The bedroom, which looked directly out to a field and forest and always smelled amazingly like bamboo:

Lovely decor:

Zen feet:

Best bathtub EVER! Huge 2 person soaking tub, where the water comes up to your chin, and the water comes out of the ceiling!

Our first night, we drove across the island from Friday Harbor (1 town on the island) to the only other town on the island, Roche Harbor. It is full of rich people with fancy boats, as well as a lot of normal people enjoying the water and surroundings. We had dinner at the Madrona Grill, which was excellent, and had quite a sunset view.

These pictures were taken from our table on the porch of the restaurant!

So beautiful!

Our overhead view:

We walked out on the docks to look at the yachts and meet the many doggies out for their evening constitutionals. This was the view from the end of the docks:

The next day we hiked around the English camp, as at one point in time, there were both English and American military stationed here. We hiked up to the top for a great view, and along the way encountered a teeny graveyard containing about 5 British soldiers. It was set far back in the woods and was a leeetle creepy.

When we reached the top of this rather steep hike, we were rewarded with an excellent view:

Yay for camera timers!

Caught again!

More views, looking across the water to Canada:

Andy looks like he is in one of those college catalogs that talk about travel:

One final view from our hike:

The following day, it rained, the only day that it rained the whole week, and we had just happened to schedule a couples massage that day. Yay! We enjoyed steam rooms, a steam bath, a relaxation room, and a couples massage. Yes! It was pure bliss and we slept SO well that night! We also enjoyed poking around the shops, restaurants, and ice cream parlors of both Roche Harbor and Friday Harbor.

Stay tuned, as the next post contains a close encounter with a seal and a pod of orca whales!