Puget Sound and the Acorn Motel

Day 11, July 10th
Distance travelled, about 200kms

The river woke us early so we were on the road before ten.  We took the opportunity to stop at Deception Falls, a wonderful woodland near the site where the last spike was hammered into the great northern railway we had followed from Michigan.

James Hill, the railway entrepreneur was there that night, a freezing, stormy January in 1893, but he asked one of the labourers to do the deed, and then everyone reposed for the photograph the next morning.

Deception Falls was a magical ecosystem of cedar and pine, kept lush and cool by the river roaring through the woodland.  We saw what is probably the last white pine in Washington State, all the others had been decimated by a virus imported from France.

We drove through the Cascades for about an hour and as we went west the temperature dropped significantly and it got misty and cool.  We stopped at one of the hundreds of coffee shacks on the side of the road and had our first lattes since Halifax.  We needed it.  We were getting closer to civilization and the roads were busier.  The houses were bigger.  The gates were more abundant.  Everything we hate about America was becoming the norm.

Around lunchtime we said goodbye to Route 2, our beloved highway that had brought us so far west and through so many beautiful places.  Instead of hopping onto the 5, we decided to take the 9, which runs alongside and which we thought would be more bucolic.

Bad idea.  It brought us through the bedroom communities for Seattle.  Layer upon layer of gated communities, lake-side condos, golf clubs, marinas, spas...... then suddenly we were in rural Washington again for a few miles.  The gates disappeared and so did the Mercedes.

A couple of miles later they re-emerged.

What are these people afraid of, we wondered. That they have to lock themselves.

We finally got to Everett, the Puget Sound was shrouded in mist, so our first glimpse of the Pacific was a bit of a bust.  We travelled over to Whibdey Island and suddenly, there it was!  The San Juan Islands lay curled up like furry caterpillars in the sun.

We drove to the ferry terminal at Anacortes and just missed the ferry to Vancouver Island.  We traveled down Whibdey Island to the village of Coupeville, deemed 'cute' by the lady at the terminal.

It was cute alright.  A hand me down version of Nantucket swarming with Seattle seniors on a day out.

We backtracked to Oak Harbour, the main town on the island and found Garry in the Acorn Motel, who gave us a great room with a power shower and a 42" tv screen for 60 bucks.  I got cleaned up and Himself watched deadliest catch and we enjoyed sleeping in a bed for the first time in a week.  And we would get to Bowen looking relatively human.

First half of the trip done.

A few days on Bowen, and then we have to drive ALL THE WAY BACK TO HALIFAX.