Monday, September 8th
We set off today for the San Juan Islands. Given that the San Juans are in the northeast corner of Washington, almost in Canada, it promised to be a long trip. We knew we ought to start early–or at least early-ish. As we pulled out of the driveway, E took note of the time: 7:37 AM. We were in the new Kia EV6, which still had only a few hundred miles on it. We’ll fix that!
Driving an EV on a road trip requires some planning and we were nervous because we had never taken a long EV trip before. The EV6, like most newer EV’s, comes with a Tesla style charging port and can access the Tesla network of fast chargers. There are plenty of those along the I-5 from Corvallis on up to Canada. One of our esteemed readers had told us that Tesla chargers were easy to use, and he was surely right. The islands are about 350 miles away and our car’s range is somewhere around 280. So, you might think that we’d only need to recharge once on the way. Yeah…well, not exactly.
Anyway, off we went. We had to get through Salem during the morning rush, but it wasn’t too bad. We got to Portland around 9:00 and found that traffic there was moving right along. Soon we crossed the old bridge over the Columbia River (roll on, Columbia, roll on) and left Oregon. So that was the first 85 miles accomplished. Then we had the long slog up through most of the state of Washington, which was going to take a while. Around noon we stopped to charge up somewhere around Tacoma. While the car charged, we got out to stretch our legs. The charging location was in a newish shopping center complex, the kind of place that’s very convenient to drive to, but decidedly not pedestrian friendly. We found that out when we tried to walk over to a Safeway to get some potato chips to go with our lunch. We got ’em, though, despite having to push through acres of tar macadam. We ate our lunch and got back on the road. The next big town was Seattle. Seattle used to be famous for terrible traffic; but we found that if all you want to do is go straight on through, it’s currently not bad at all.
By then it was early afternoon and we still had a ways to go. Our ferry to Orcas Island was scheduled to leave Anacortes at 3:40. And the ferry website advised us to arrive at the toll gate at least 45 minutes to an hour before departure. So we gave ourselves a 2:40 deadline. That left us just time enough to charge up the car one more time . Why? Well, we had enough charge remaining to easily get us to our destination. But our destination had no fast chargers, so it was a matter not just of getting there, but also of driving around the island to see the sights and then getting back from the island to the nearest charging station. So we stopped again at a Tesla station just twenty miles from Anacortes. We had enough time to charge up and then get to the ferry terminal by 2:45. Whew. Finally we could relax. (E remembers that we didn’t even take the time to pop in to the See’s chocolate shop which was right next to the charging area.)
As the ferry eased out of the dock, E watched the cormorants.
A few minutes later, M looked back at Anacortes, where another ferry was still docked at the terminal.
An hour and a half later, after a brief stop at Shaw Island, our ferry docked at the Orcas Island terminal. Once disembarked, we drove north to the town of Eastsound. By the time we got there, we were getting hungry again and decided to stop for dinner before going on to check in to our room. After wandering around a bit, we stepped into the White Horse Pub, where we got seats at a window overlooking a body of water called Fishing Bay.
After dinner we pushed on a few more miles to our hotel room. As we entered the room, we again noted the time: 7:36 PM. So yeah, it was a long day of travel. We’re tempted to call it 12 hours door to door, but that would be an exaggeration.
Tuesday, September 9th
We woke up this morning in our room at the Rosario Resort. Rosario is the site of a very grand mansion built in 1906 by a fellow named Robert Moran. Moran was born in New York City in 1857. At the age of 18 he left New York–in part to escape an ill-tempered father–and arrived in Seattle with just ten cents to his name. Through several years of hard work he made enough money to bring his mother and four younger siblings out to Seattle to join him. He then proceeded to get very rich by building up a marine services and construction business in which he employed all three of his younger brothers. He was twice elected mayor of Seattle. Then, in his late forties, he was told by doctors that he had less than a year to live. He then retired, sold his business and moved to a mansion on Orcas Island. Retirement was good for him; he went on to live another 40 years to the age of 86. (This summary barely scratches the surface of Moran’s life; see more here.)
Today Rosario Resort includes the mansion plus three separate houses that Moran built for his brothers. You can’t see the sibling houses in the photo above, but you can see two more pieces of the current property: the round, clifftop playhouse that Moran built for the kids and the rather tacky square building that a more recent owner built to so as to have more rooms to rent out. The mansion, as originally built, contained something like 27 bedrooms, but that building is closed these days. The playhouse has been converted to a luxury room; it’s now rentable but quite expensive. We stayed in the square building. Our room was spacious and reasonably comfortable. But boy did it need a new carpet. As a “resort and spa” Rosario has seen better days.
We had breakfast in the room–there being no other option. We ate fruit and granola bars and made coffee on the in-room machine. There were plenty of coffee packets for said machine, seven in total, all decaf. E pulled out a tube of caffeinated Nescafe from among her standard travel supplies, so we managed to create half-caff, which is more or less what we’re drinking these days. After breakfast we went back to town and bought supplies at Orcas Island Market–the largest grocery on the island and one that we found to be a wonderful place.
Later in the morning we went walking on the Cascade Lake waterfalls trail in nearby Moran State Park. The area has never been logged and is quite beautiful.
We next drove around a bit, stopping to eat our picnic lunch in a townlet called Olga and also driving past the Buck Bay Shellfish Farm. We’re told that you can get a wonderful meal there, but all we took away was a photo.
Soon we went back to Rosario for a rest. We found some Adirondack chairs on the lawn outside our window and spent a couple of hours reading our books. We were looking out over a lovely little bay below tree covered slopes. It was a wonderfully peaceful scene, seemingly far away from anywhere.
During this season, at least, most restaurants on Orcas are closed on Tuesday and Wednesday, so finding a place to have dinner was a challenge. Fortunately, we found a Mexican restaurant called Mijita’s. They were doing a brisk business on this Tuesday and their food was excellent. Mijita’s is near the Eastsound Public Library and after dinner we walked over that way. The library garden was awesome. E saw some things she wanted for her garden.
Wednesday, September 10th
Today we wanted to take a longer walk, so we decided to try hiking around a mountain lake. The trail was said to be 3.9 miles, which is a little much for some of us these days, but we figured it would be mostly level. The name of this mountain lake is easy to remember. It’s called Mountain Lake. Here’s what the whole area looks like to space aliens visiting from above. It’s a lot prettier from the ground. Moran owned most of this land. He never allowed logging or hunting and donated hundreds of acres to make the park.
After the hike, we drove a little farther up the mountain to see the view.
Thursday, September 11th
Time to go home. We got on the 9:10 AM ferry, which got us back to the mainland at around 10:45. The passenger decks on these ferries are really quite comfortable, with long rows of padded seats in the middle and a couple dozen spacious tables along the sides. We found a table with a completed jigsaw puzzle on it. We took it apart and had it back together again by the time we pulled into Anacortes.
The drive back to Corvallis again made for a long day, but not having a ferry deadline at the end made it less stressful than the drive up.
Friday, September 12th
E went grocery shopping today at the Co-op. When she came out, she found that her blue car had attracted four others.
Saturday, September 13th
E attended a backyard concert hosted by one of our neighbors. It involved a potluck dinner and a recital by a local singer/songwriter. It was a lovely clear night and E enjoyed the music and the camaraderie.
You two take such delightful trips – so well planned,, such good places, so well chronicled in words and pictures. And your readers don’t have to stress over ferry timetables or charging stops!
Thanks!
Were the Cormorants resting on the dock itself? I couldn’t decipher whether that was actually a picture of Cormorants taking the Ferry.
That photo is ambiguous. They were on the dock and did not choose to come with us.