Day 9 – 15 Woss to Sidney to La Conner, WA

I did a whole lot of nothing for quite a few days. I sat in a hammock, I watched tv, and that pretty much sums up 85% of what I did. Big H and I went on drives after he was off work and I got to see quite a bit of the Nimpkish Valley. We took one evening and went up to Telegraph Cove for dinner. There was a BBQ at one of Big H’s friend’s house with good food and good conversation. We went to Nimpkish Lake and watched windsufers and kiteboarders, we watched sunsets and had excellent conversations. It was exactly what I hoped it would be.

The day before I left Big H and I decided to tube down the Nimpkish River. We were told that it was about 1.5 hours from where we were getting in to where we were getting out. We tied water bottles around our tubes so they could float with us, keep us hydrated without worrying about losing our water. We slathered on the sunscreen, made sure we had t-shirts to keep us covered up, and into the river we went.

The falls where we went in feed a huge pool where salmon gather to rest before continuing upstream. The salmon had just started to gather, which meant the eagles were just starting to circle. It was unreal. We travelled down the river and had an absolute blast. It ended up being a 4 hour trip. It was one of the best days I have ever had. It was worth the horrid sunburn I ended up with.

My sunscreen washed off in patches, two spots on top of my hands, my scalp, odd patches on my shins, a patch on my back and the patches where my arms sat on the tube (which I was allergic to and ended up with a nasty rash to go with my burn), and the very tip of my nose. It was extremely painful, but like I said, it was worth it.

The day I left I slept in, and I took my sweet time getting my ass on the road and I was convinced I was not going to make the ferry to Anacortes in time. To make matters worse I managed to take the long route. When I should have continued on the road I was taking I ended up taking the coastal route and got stuck in some pretty nasty traffic. Lucky for me I managed to, yet again, catch the ferry, barely.

The ferry was another quick trip and I really wish I had paid more attention to passing scenery but I was too tired from having woken up at 5 AM, again. The worst part of the trip was sitting in the line to get off the ferry, and get through customs. It felt like it was about 40 C out, sitting there in my car, with other cars all around me, and the sun pounding us all. The only thing that made it bearable were the various classic cars that were in the line with me. Some classic car club was heading home and there were Packards and a number of Rolls, and some cars I wasn’t familiar with. They were beautiful.

I made it through customs, got to La Conner, checked into the inn and was in total heaven, for about 30 minutes.