STARR TREKS Friday 6/5/15 Anacortes WA
Not a very exciting day today. Our ferry left around 12:00 and we had to be in line by 10:30. We checked out of the hotel around 8:45 and drove 30 min north to Sidney. We parked downtown on Beacon Ave and just walked around. It really is a pretty little harbor town. It is known for having a lot of bookstores, so we did browse in a few. We walked on a paved trail around the harbor area. The day was beautiful, sunny, blue sky— just lovely. When we drove over to the ferry, there were cars lining up already. We had to declare what we bought in Canada— nothing!— just ate a lot of fish!. Larry bought the tickets for the return trip and got a coupon for a “free gift” if we spent $100 in the ferry gift shop. We browsed, and it really was a pretty nice gift shop, but nothing we needed. We really enjoyed the ferry ride again— the water was nice and smooth and it was such a beautiful day. We decided to lunch in the cafeteria, so we had Ivar’s clam chowder (did not get to eat at Ivar’s restaurant in seattle since it was closed for the seawall construction) and a sandwich— tasted very good. Everyone in northern WA has to recycle — everywhere we were, including the ferry, had separate receptacles in restaurants for paper and plastic, and separate ones for food. We stopped at the Friday port (that is the name of the harbor there) and lots of people, cars, and trucks came on— many school kids ? on field trips — kids are still in school here. We never got to see any whales or dolphins as I had hoped, but we did see a lot of jellyfish!
The ferry did not land in Anacortes (the name of the town came from a Spanish interpretation of a lady named Anna Curtis) until almost 3 pm. The line was slow going thru customs back into the USA — they are very fussy about firearms, fresh fruits, and fresh vegetables. On the way to the RV park, we stopped at Verizon — I had done something weird to my phone — I think I was pushing on the screen a lot, since I held it in my hand so often to take photos — I lost my email icon. I also was having trouble with the battery discharging too fast. The first Verizon lady could not figure it out, but the next lady danced her thumbs on it, and located my lost icon! She also did something with the “refresh” on settings so it was not using up my battery so fast.
We decided to run over to Safeway to get a bottle of wine for supper— they were having a wine tasting there! So we tried 3 WA wines that were on sale— a chardonnay, a merlot, and a cabernet. We really liked the cabernet— Mercer Canyon Horse Heaven Hills 2012 — the vineyard is along the Columbia river. When we got back to the RV, I started doing laundry. We grilled a steak, and I microwaved some vegetables. The TV was on, and when I started the vent fan over the stove— we lost our electricity. I yelled for Larry to check if we tripped a breaker, but he could not see one tripped. He checked the outside plug, and it looked ok. He asked the neighbor if their electricity was ok, and no problem there. Anyhow, it came on again, so I reset the microwave, and restarted the washer and dryer, and it blew again. So we ran the generator and turned a few things off, and seems ok now. Larry thinks with a 50 amp, we should not have this problem— especially with no air conditioner running. He thinks it is a problem with the park and not with our RV.
We took a long walk around the RV park after supper — we had eaten a lot of salad, apples, the rest of our Rainier cherries— I was stuffed. The park had really filled up since Tuesday night when we checked in. We stopped to talk to our next door neighbors — they had 3 grandkids with them and actually live about 30 miles away. Interestingly, Judy was a pediatric nurse and Alex worked for a PT group as a hand therapist. I pumped him for information about my finger arthritis— said nothing could be done. He asked if my R thumb hurt— it does not, but he said the big lump at the base of my thumb is a subluxation, and if it starts to hurt, I will need surgery like he did! Larry talked to him about trigger fingers (old people!!), and we talked a lot about pediatric practices with Judy. She says they have 18 pediatricians in their group — town of 60,000 with a big drawing area. She says that all she does now is advice calls — does not even have any direct patient contact any more. They looked like they were in their early 60’s — Larry thought Alex looked like Jim Heckert.
Anyhow, I gave Judy and Alex 4 gigantic apples and a bunch of plums that would be confiscated at the border tomorrow. We made an RV park reservation in Surrey BC — there is a Costco there, and it looks like there may be public transportation to Vancouver from there. We decided to try to just go one day and see the city a little, go to Stanley Park, and visit the wonderful aquarium. After we leave Surrey, we will be really starting our Alaska journey. We are happy to have been so lucky with the weather so far!
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| Sidney BC |
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| on the ferry |
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| at our lovely rv park |
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