Orcas Island

Hard to believe, but this is the last night of our road trip with Robert and Jaki across the Pacific Northwest. Yesterday we took a ferry from Anacortes, on the island of Fidalgo, to Orcas, one of the San Juan Islands that lie between Washington State and British Columbia. As you can see, it is stunningly beautiful here, and - most amazing - the weather has decided to be nice to us with sun and clear skies. You could almost believe that summer is near. Oh, that's right, it is.

We've rented a house above Deer Bay for our last couple of days. It's most appropriately named since we've seen a couple of deer while sitting around. We have definitely enjoyed the change in weather and NOT driving. The four of us have all come to the conclusion that we've had enough driving on this and our earlier road trip to last us for a long time.

Last night was fun and games. Literally. Whoever set this house up is a mad gamer. There are heaps of boxed games like Scrabble, Pictionary, Boggle and Orcasopoly (which we assume is the Orcas version of Monopoly). But what really caught our fancies was a garage with a full-sized pool table, dart board and foosball. So last night we played some pool and I discovered two things: 1) It's easier to blame your missed shots on not playing for quite a while, rather than the booze you've been drinking, and 2) You need to be very aware that your butt crack can show when you lean way over the table to take a shot.

The one downside to being so remote is that we really are remote. Our mobile phones don't get much of a signal and even the Internet connection is so bad that Skype keeps cutting in and out. Not such a bad thing normally, but annoying last night when I could not keep connected to Tom when I called to wish him Happy Birthday.

Anyhow, it's kind of nice to have a lazy day today. An early ferry tomorrow back to Anacortes, then Robert and Jaki will undoubtedly breathe a sigh of relief as they drop LK and me off at the airport.