Travels of THB: Day 2: Round trip between San Juan Island and Orcas Island

Day 2: Round trip between San Juan Island and Orcas Island

Weather: Cold and clear in the morning (high 30s) to very pleasant in the afternoon (low 60s) to clouding up in the early evening and then raining (a major storm is forecast for the rest of the week)

QOTDFY (Quote of the day from yesterday): Please put all your electronic devices in airplane mode except the Samsung Galaxy phones, they have to be turned completely off. Repeat: please turn off your Samsung phones.

QOTD: Did you like going back to camp?

It is very cold this morning as we watch the sunrise. Breakfast is included in the room charge; THB has plain yogurt and granola, accompanied by a mildly toasted English muffin.

We’re taking the ferry to Orcas Island, primarily to visit the camp where K spent most of teenage year’s summers, either as camper, a camp worker, or a counselor, often for 9 weeks each summer.

It's too cold for THB

Mt Baker?

Passing on the left (bow? stern? port?)

The ferry is a breeze, no payment required on the outbound (it turns out that you pay on the return, $22 for the round trip for the four of us and the car), and smooth sailing.

Best bakery in town, closed

We tour East Sound, the major town on Orcas, walking in the morning chill, scouting out lunch spots and bakeries. The “best” bakery is closed on Wednesdays, and the second best bakery needs a part to repair its oven.

At the top of Mt Constitution

Is it...?

Yes, it is!

Mt Bakery in the background

Canada, before they build the wall (the moat is yuge)

From the city tour, we motor to the Moran State Park, doing a drive-by of the Rosario Resort, to the top of Mt. Constitution and glorious 360 vista of the islands and Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Yep, that’s Mt Baker off to the east and Canada to the north. The wall that Canada is building is not visible from here, THB should have brought his binoculars.

No artisan bread today

Back to East Sound for lunch at Roses, a very nice spot with artisan bread. OOOPS, this is the spot with the broken oven, so the main bread served with lunch is a brioche (from somewhere else). Lunch of thin crust pizza, pear and walnut and gorgonzola salads, soups for E and DB, and a croque monsieur for E, and a Tazo ice tea for THB (too sweet), coffee, $105. One chocolate chip cookie for later, $2.50.

A stop at a local pottery place that K remembers from back in the day, and then it is on to the highlight of the day, a visit to Four Winds Camp.

Pics from old camp photo albums:

Note the uniforms and a certain camper's blue legs

And the counselor's green tie

We meet with the camp manager (who was a camper in the 70s) and one of the office staff members (who knew K from camp days). The manager gives us a rundown of the latest changes, which means things like propane for providing hot showers and metal roofs on the bathrooms instead of shingles. Otherwise, things are pretty much as they have been for eons: two four week sessions per summer with a short break in the middle, co-ed, and the kids wear uniforms.

Each session leaves their names on the cabin door:

Where is it?

K then leads the tour (there are only a few maintenance staff prowling around), from the girls’ cabins to the main lodge and dining area to the waterfront, to the veggie garden and orchards to the barn. DB has been twice to visit (once when the camp was in session), THB once before when camp was out.

E has a chance to see where K spent a lot of her formative time, spending long periods away from home from 12 or 13 years old as well as lengthy periods working for a living in her late teens (she washed dishes in the kitchen one summer along with being a counselor-in-training and counselor several years). Lots of fond memories, enough that K gives Four Winds a donation on a regular basis…that’s loyalty!

The apples from the camp orchard are excellent!

Before heading to the ferry, we indulge in another tradition: ice cream at the Deer Harbor Marina, $17 for a variety of scoops and a large bottle of water.

Now THB gets to find out: yep, he has double ordered ferry tickets for the Anacortes – Friday Harbor round trip and gets a form to send back in the extra tickets for a refund. THB thinks this happened because the website didn’t quite make it clear that the fare was for a round trip and that happened because THB booked each leg on separate entries into the website. Or, maybe it was just incompetence and lack of experience on THB’s part. Maybe it was all the distracting locker room banter going on. Somebody should apologize. THB loves the Washington Department of Transportation. Somebody should apologize. Can THB take the refund as a deduction on his taxes? For how many years? Somebody should apologize. Just saying, locker room banter.

Time to share that cc cookie from Roses

Okay, back to SJI on the ferry, $22 (as reported at the beginning of this post). A short time to rest up at Friday Harbor House, and a very short walk down the stairs outside the hotel to dinner at the nearby Cask and Schooner. Just okay, THB has steak and fries, neither real hot. DB’s oysters come after her steak salad. A chicken sandwich for K, shepherd’s pie for E (served VERY hot). Great Tieton cider for THB, wine and brewskie for DB and K, $145.

Somehow, the stairs are now four times the length going up than they were going down (somebody please apologize!), and it has started to rain.

Shots from around Orcas: