Starr Treks: Alaska trip Tuesday 6/2/15 Anacortes WA

Starr Treks Tuesday 6/2/15 Anacortes WA

It was a drizzly morning. We just spent time looking stuff up on the internet— while we still have internet. We decided that we needed to spend 2 nights in Victoria, or we could not have time to see what we wanted to see. So we called the ferry to change the coming back day to Friday, contacted the hotel in Victoria to add a night, and added a night to the RV park in Anacortes!!! Just before Larry backed the RV out, he realized that he had misplaced the car keys— again! He went outside, and found them laying in the gravel next to the RV(!). It drizzled all the way along the 90 miles we traveled thru misty farmlands. Larry wanted to find a truck stop to gas up. We found one on my truckstop app— with difficulty — but it was out of business!! We decided we still had a half tank and would gas up before we cross to Canada. The RV park here is beautiful — we are in a forested area — very nicely kept park — lots of flowers, even tomato plants growing!

After lunch, we decided to drive the 8-9 miles to the ferry so we would know where we are going in the morning. We got lost of course, even on a teeny island! We asked someone for directions and found it ok. We then drove to downtown Anacortes and stopped at the Chamber of Commerce— they had a lot of Canada information which I needed! The volunteer there advised us to take a short drive to the Cap Sante viewpoint— a big rock where we had a great view of the marina, the San Juan mountains, outlying islands, Tesoro oil refineries in the distance— there was no wind or rain then and it was lovely. We then drove to the Anacortes Museum. It was housed in a historic old library building and had a nice exhibit about the history of the area, starting with the Samish and Swinomish Indians, to the develop of industry— mainly forest (logging, lumber, plywood manufacturing) and fish (canneries, fishing industry). Anacortes was once known as the salmon canning capital! The last company closed in 1999. There was a neat old photo of men leaving from the marina in 1957 to spend 3 mo fishing in Alaska! There was a lot of info on the Civilian Conservation Corp that FDR started to help employ people who had no jobs and teach them a trade — seems like our country should reinstate that! The current population of Anacortes is about 16,000.

We drove a mile or so to the Maritime Museum next to a large steam driven “snagboat” the W.T.Preston. (We actually drove past a Christian Reformed Church — the church I grew up in — I suspect there are a lot of Dutch people in WA). We didn’t have time to take the ship tour, but just went thru the museum. Snagboats were used by the US army Corp of engineers since the 1930’s to clear up lumber jams and stacks of old growth — this made the river navigation possible.

After we got back to the RV, I looked up a lot of stuff on line about Victoria. Before we ate supper, we took a walk around the RV park— bigger than we thought it was — and just so nicely kept. For supper, I tried to use up potatoes, cherries, and apples — all this would be confiscated at the border when we cross this weekend. I packed a lunch to eat on our 3 hour ferry ride in the morning — with lots more fruit. We packed our suitcase and some snacks to take in the car. The ferry leaves at 8:30 — we need to be in line with our fair paid an hour ahead of time, so Larry wants to leave the RV at 6:30 — don’t know if there will be a rush hour going thru downtown. We’ll come back on Friday and get in about 12:30, so we’ll have a little more time to explore Anacortes— it is a very cute little town. Our hotel in Victoria has wifi, so should be able to journal these next 2 days.