El Viejo Lobo: February 2006

Rosario Park beach. Katherine told us about this wonderful pebble beach

Some kind of sea weed

No! I'm not being weighed down with pebbles I swear.

Lovely shops on La Conner, especially this caravan gallery. Stunning jewellery from all over the world....right opposite this old tree trunk

Langley in the south of the Island

Bought some wine and port from Greenbank Vineyard...after a bit of tasting too!

Bears and totems and salmon...

Bird houses and boat house (marine museum) in Coupville where we stayed for the night.

Perfect dream house....chocolate and lodging!

Almost like a country town in an old western film

More wonderful shops in La Conner

Fantastic weekend getaway; Whidbey Island, Washington.
Slept in on Saturday morning. Maarten went to pick up the car from budget and I put everything together (lunch, change of clothes, water). We dropped by White Rock to see the white rock which sit brightly painted in the middle of the beach. Funny thing that. We grabbed a really nice coffee/hot chocolate and relaxed dreaming of just how crowded a place like this could get in the summer. Apparently it is packed with not a bit of grass of sand to spare. The town is filled with fine muriels, we took photos of the whales, cute seals waving goodbye and of a huge pink octopus very much like the one in the Vancouver Aquarium and then took off in the wrong direction.
We saw quite a bit of Canada on the border finding ourselves on the Brown Road Heritage route, which also ended up nowhere. Saw some fine houses with a lot of trees and huge front yards and then finally got ourselves onto route 99.
The border is something different altogether. We got to Peach Arch Park (literally has a huge white gateway) There is the hotdog man on the left hand side, flags flying high (windy day), a long, long wait at mid-day and lots of bored travellers, we took in all the number plates from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Florida and some from B.C. We got our newspapers and book out to read, then I saw a man in the distance waving a board. I’m thinking yay! some kind of immigration security – now we know something is happening except when we got to this man we found he was the ice cream man waving his board of ice creams, tempting us to get some and eat it in our warm cars.

After immigration, which included getting out of the car if you were anything but Canadian or American, finger prints taken after rubbing the side ofyour nose for oil (really really!), address of where you’re going (here’s where Maarten and I aren’t never any good… we usually tell everybody else, “ah we’ll see when we get there, don't know where to stay, hey we could go camping in the wild…where the wind blows, maybe stay in Coupeville, maybe Port Townsend, who knows…” answers like that aren’t good with US immigration, so I changed it to… ‘the c place, can you remember Maarten? Do you want me to get the guide book out of the car sir?” well we paid our 6 bucks and got a 3 month visa to enter into the US again and scooted out of there to the nearest (first) gas station (notice I've gone all Americanized...none of that 'fuel' 'petrol' station for us).

Then we drove to Lynden having been told about it months ago. Dutch town complete with a windmill. It was exceptional. We went in to look at all the Dutch goodies you could get from eating things like fudge, appelstroop to blue and white tiles and clogs. The quaint inside was made up of shops beside a canal. It was windy and freezing but we even made it to one of the small fabric shops. The countryside was flat, there were wood carving places along the drive into the town.

After that we drove to Whidbey Island, taking Chunanut Drive (highly recommended by Katherine) close by one of the Bellingham exits. It is something special to do, driving along the coast, islands and lakes and the bay, thick forests, oyster bars on the edge of cliffs into creeks. That ends as you get to Fidalgo Island (has Anacortes where you can take the ferry to San Juan Island, made up of little islands called Shaw, Orcas, Friday). We drove on to Deception Pass.

Deception Pass is breathtaking with a huge gorge, views of islands, pebble beaches and old growth forests. The gorge has whirlpools that swallow whole tree logs. That pass is along tree lined Chuckanut Drive. We got to Coupeville and spent the night at the Coupeville Inn. The towns here are filled with artists, craftworks, woodworks, vineyards, beautiful shops, great big Victorian mansions, quaint b&bs. The countryside reminded us of Ireland with it's rolling hills, sheep, friendly people, except for the Wineries...of which there were plenty, which brings me to Greenbank, a little blink and you'll miss it town. We went to the community run vineyard there. It is no longer operating but serves to promote all the wineries on the island and surrounds. So we did a wine tasting session for $4 each and also got to taste 2 ports with that. Maarten and I tasted about 6 altogether. Got talking to the man there and learnt a little history of wine as well. Got started on the history of food and you know where thats leads... so we got delayed in catching the boat to Port Townsend and went to Langly instead. Same kind of set up with the town on the water with a little harbour and cute shops. Also included a cheap good place to eat called The Dog House. We didn't stop for long there thinking we could make it to Keystone for the next boat. We passed the town about 1.29pm. The boat would leave at 1.30. So we missed out again. We went to Oak Harbour and played on the beach there...actually it was a beach once now it's just a huge long pile of logs washed up from the sea. Oh and there was a windmill right on the harbour.
After that we worked out way home...via La Conner on teh way to Seattle, you'll find it driving through forests of cedar and fir. It's got pretty damn good shops especially one called The Caravan - I had to be dragged out of there. The architecture is fine, the whole town is touristy, pretty, great for fish and chips and any kind of seafood you like. We just walked leisurely looking at everything including a pretty impressive orange bridge that spanned the swinomish channel... we ate seafood and watched logs getting dragged along the river channel.

Now I will update this on and write some more later with photos.

Here's something I learnt today...and who say's I'm not innocent???

Cougar: women in their thirties, forties, fifties, maybe even sixties, going after men a decade or three younger than them.In Vancouver, and "cougar" is a common slang term. Is it a Canadian term? Does anyone know the origins of this term? Is "thirties" or even [early] "forties" an age for cougardom? I just hope 30's isn’t lumped into the cougar range- it just seems way to young to call a "cougar".

Coyote Ugly: The slang term "coyote ugly" refers to the feeling of waking up after a one night stand and discovering that you are beside someone who is so physically repulsive that you would gladly gnaw off any of your limbs that he or she is sleeping on just so you can get away without being discovered.