Visiting Other Islands

I live on an island in the San Juan Archipelago.  When I leave home, I go "off-island", usually this is to the mainland or "America".  This month, I made several trips off-island to visit neighboring islands.  Let me introduce you to a few of these.

First, I visited Shaw Island, population of about 240.  Our County Textile Guild was holding one of our quarterly Meetings in the Shaw Community Center.  Since the basket group meets in this same hall every month, I am most familiar with this site.

house on Guemes

However, I've never been to Guemes, which is a five minute ferry ride from Anacortes which is on Fidalgo Island.  Two friends and I have always wanted to see Guemes so we made a special trip earlier in the month.  It's nice.  About the same size as Shaw which meant we were done touring it in about an hour.  We spent the afternoon walking around Washington Park, on Fidalgo, about two miles from the ferry.

Washington Park

On May 12th I had the opportunity to attend the Lopez Lamb and Wool Festival.  The Textile Guild put a booth up to promote ourselves to Lopezians.  It worked.  We got several new members.  It also was a lot of fun.

Alpaca

Navajo Sheep with four horns

Shearing a Sheep

And the very next weekend, my friend Liz and I met on Orcas for our annual spa day, this time at Rosaria Resort Spa.  We enjoyed a lovely day there and ate at Allium Restaurant, a foody place in Eastsound.

The next day, as we were leaving Thornbush to take a walk at Jakles Lagoon, we chanced upon this barred owl near our pond.  There's really no place like home.

Retreat

Sometimes you just have to get away from it all.  Do something entirely different from your usual routine.  Take time out for yourself.  This is the theme that resonated with me this month.
About a week after Corbin was born and the twins were returned to their parents, my yoga teacher held a day-long retreat here on the island, including lunch, a trip to the Sculpture garden, a lovely dinner at her restaurant, and of course, lots of yoga.  By the end of the day, I swear, it felt like I'd had five massages in a row.  The effects lasted several days. 

The very next week, a different kind of retreat--this one a basket making class held on Shaw Island for 2 and a half days.  So the nine people in our class stayed at the guest house of one of our members.  A big, three day slumber party on one of the quietest locales in the San Juan Archipelago.  The Tahitian Market Basket was difficult, but satisfying.

Anita and Monique make bling to decorate our baskets

The very next weekend, we went farther afield for our R&R.  This time to Seaside, Oregon, to join friends in a big house a stone's throw from the boardwalk.  This was the first time since August, that Roger has ventured off-island for anything other than business.  Roger got to hold his grandson for the first time.

We got to stay one night with our friends in Raymond and take in an interesting exhibit at the museum in Astoria called "Envisioning the World"  The First Printed Maps, 1472-1700.  Columbia River Maritime Museum  Check it out if you have the chance.

The Mighty Columbia



My last example of retreats from the past month is a little more obscure. Burying myself in a book for a few days is a way of retreating from my day to day cares. My new book club (that I will now refer to as the Rock Island Readers) just read the first book in the Maisie Dobbs series.  This mystery set in post World War I London dealt with shell-shocked veterans who were mysteriously disappearing from their place of refuge called "The Retreat".  The book was surprisingly relevant as we hear more and more of Afghanistan and Iraq veterans returning to their lives with their own battle scars.  

Now the retreats are in the past and its back to the hustle and bustle of Springtime in the San Juans.  I feel like I've jumped on the merry-go-round which is accelerating toward the June reunion.  I'm already looking forward to a "Spa Day" in May--and perhaps another yoga retreat.

Arcade ride at Seaside

Parties and a Flood

Roger's Dad Al stayed with us through the celebration of Roger's 55th birthday at the end of the month.  It feels a little quieter now that he is back in Auburn.  But we will be seeing him soon enough as we go down to celebrate Christmas with the Ellisons in a week.

The Christmas Season began in earnest for us with a couple of parties on Dec 4th.  The first was our annual National Park dance at English Camp.



I dressed up in my 1850's garb but had no time to change before the next shindig, and open house at the new Brickworks Farmers' Market.  Roger had gone directly from the market to the open house. 

The next day the Soroptimists had their annual Holiday Party at the Community Theater. I made devilled eggs. Three days after that, I drove one of the cars in a caravan of Textile Guild members to the Burke Museum for a show on fabric from countries throughout the Pacific Rim.  A nice weaver named Erica gave us a talk on the similarities and differences in weaving techniques.  It's a good show.  See the link Burke Museum And on Saturday, we attended a lovely Caroling Party at Heritage Farm.



Our new floating dock



our road?!



Meanwhile, back at our farm, the waters were beginning to rise.  And rise.  And rise.  What happened was--Alaska Place overflowed its culvert which overflowed the ditch to Eric's place which jeopardized his shop so he diverted the water into the Ellison Lane ditch which couldn't keep up.  So our road became a mini-stream.  And the pond filled and filled and filled and the stream became a river, and then a lake.  The paper said it rained 2.66 inches that day on top of the 2+ inches in the five previous days.  Oh, and our shop flooded, too.  I, myself, vacuumed 35 gallons out and Roger matched that amount.

our stream?!

Don't worry, the waters have already receded.  Although they do say we are in for more rain through December.

Oh and Tuesday, the Textile Guild Holiday Party was a big success.  They seemed to like the tree ornaments I made by pressing Queen Anne's Lace into snowflakes.  More parties planned for this coming weekend.  Stay tuned.