Back…finally!
The weekend was quite pleasant, though it ended up being a bit more adventurous and taking longer than we expected. Prairie and I got up really early on Saturday morning to drive out and catch the 9:30am ferry from Anacortes to Friday Harbor, San Juan Island, then continued on from there to our destination for the weekend.
Prairie’s dad’s fiancé owns and runs Wood Duck Ponds, a gorgeous vacation and wedding retreat almost smack-dab in the center of the island. The property includes two large houses that she rents out to visitors; three ponds that are home to various ducks, geese, and swans; lots of gardens that I’m sure are beautiful during the summer months when in full bloom; and plenty of space to wander around in.
One of the definite benefits to visiting in the “off season” (not to mention the family connection) was that we were able to stay in the larger of the two rental houses. The Bridge House is beautiful — five bedrooms, two living rooms, a fireplace, a hot tub on the outside deck, and huge windows overlooking the gardens and one of the ponds. The weather was too cold and rainy for us to take advantage of the hot tub, unfortunately, but a pleasant evening in front of the fireplace with a movie worked out quite nicely.
We were able to spend some time Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning exploring the island, with Prairie’s dad as something of a tour guide. Saturday we headed down to some national parkland at the southeastern tip of the island — a former American military encampment (called, ingeniously enough, the “American Camp”) from some conflict between America and Britain that I was told had something to do with a pig. Both Prairie and her dad kept making oblique references to the “pig incident”, however, neither of them could remember enough details about it to actually fill me in. I was assured, however, that there would be signs at the parkland that would make everything clear.
Sure enough, when we got to the site, there were signs scattered around that told the story. Unfortunately, as we ended up wandering rather aimlessly around the grounds after a wrong turn and spent most of our walk doing our best to avoid various nettles and thorny bushes, I was still a little lost as to just what went on with the pig. All told, the primary impression I got from the area was just how stupendously bad a job the American soldiers did of picking a place for their encampment — the entire area is rather barren, with little to no trees to block the wind that comes fairly constantly off the water, and what little harbor is there is far to shallow to allow ships to come up terribly close to land. All in all, it looked like a rather horrid little place to have to stay for any length of time.
Sunday we headed to the northwestern part of the island to check out the site of the other players in the “pig incident” — the British camp. While I did finally get the rest of the story while we were there (which will come along before terribly long…), I was rather amused at how handily the British troops had managed to one-up their American counterparts. Their encampment site was beautiful — a sheltered cove in the lee of the prevailing winds, with a decent deep-water harbor for their ships to dock in, hillsides for their barracks that overlooked the water, and they’d even planted an ornamental garden to beautify the site and remind their wives of home! Much, much nicer than what those poor American shmoes had to put up with!
I’ll get to the details of the “pig incident” in my next post. ;) Gotta keep y’all coming back somehow, after all!
I did discover one other interesting thing while I was on the island, though. Ever since I got down to Washington, I’d occasionally see one tree in the midst of a grove that had an unusual, bright red coloring to its trunk, but I’d never found anyone who knew what kind of tree it was, or why it had the coloring that it did. There were a couple of the trees on the Wood Duck Ponds property, though, and when I asked Prairie’s dad about it, he told me that they were Pacific Madrone trees. Apparently, the Madrone is known for its unusual coloring — the wood of the tree has a deep, rich red tone to it, and the tree will actually shed its bark at time, allowing the coloring of the inner wood to show through. Whatever the cause, they’re gorgeous, and now I at least know what I’m looking at!
Eventually, it was time to leave, and we headed out. The ferry ride from Friday Harbor to Anacortes was nice and uneventful, and we pulled over into a gas station in Burlington to fill the gas tank before we made the drive back to Seattle. Unfortunately, there disaster struck — Prairie’s car absolutely refused to start again. She’d suspected that it had been having some difficulty with the fuel lines a few months ago, but the mechanic she had taken it to at the time had assured her that everything was fine, and that there wasn’t a problem. Well, apparently he was more than a little wrong, as no matter how we threatened, coaxed, or cajoled it, the car refused to turn over.
Tired and more than a little frustrated, we managed to get ahold of Prairie’s sister Hope. Hope and her boyfriend Peter came out to rescue us, a tow truck was called, and the car is now sitting in a lot in Mt. Vernon, to be taken to a shop there tomorrow morning. Hope and Peter dropped Prairie and I off here at my apartment, and tomorrow Prairie will be taking a Greyhound bus back to Ellensburg, with arrangements for getting the car fixed in her dad’s hands, and plans for getting her back to the car to be determined later on.
So, while the weekend as a whole was quite good, the final few hours were more than a little frustrating. Still, we’re back safe and sound, and everything will work out one way or another eventually.
More on the “pig incident” tomorrow, after I’ve had time to rest for a night (assuming your Google-happy little fingers don’t go all a-searching in the meantime, satisfying your curiosity but totally spoiling my storytelling skills).
Until then, my favorite picture from the weekend…
