Spain and Beyond

Cattle Point Biking Day:
21.11 miles, 1338 ft ascent, 3 hrs. 2 min.
Daily Drena: Room with a View

Today had an unfortunate start of a call from Brandon. Panicking, I answered the phone thinking that Sophie had escaped and run off, but it was a lesser hiccup of the power going out. Thankfully, it was basically only our neighborhood, so was back on in an hour and a half or so.

Next up was yet another amazing breakfast from Holly, which was a potato bowl with various sundries packed in. We were all dished out Mike-size portions, so Holly packed up our leftovers in a to go bag for lunch, along with a bag of cherries.

All in all, if you have not been to Mike and Holly’s Bed and Breakfast, we highly recommend it. It has superb service, enticing breakfasts AND dinners, comes with guided bike tours of the area, and even has a pickleball court and hot tub! Easily 6 out of 5 stars…we will be back!

We packed up our stuff and headed out on our next leg of the journey, which was a drive up the highway (thanks Mike and Holly!!) to Anacortes. We just missed the noon ferry, so, of course, had to purchase some ice cream to wile away the time. Apparently, one scoop around here is equivalent to three scoops back in Boulder, so we were quite full by the time the ferry arrived and we boarded.

We found the last table available on the lowest level (attempting to abate my seasick-proneness) and it had a puzzle sitting out that people apparently work on during the ferry ride, so we added a few pieces during the journey.

We didn’t arrive at Friday Harbor until 4ish, so jumped on our bikes and made the very short commute (0.4 mile) to our lodgings for the night. Since it was late in the day, we only relaxed for a few minutes before tossing on our biking gear and heading back out, as we only had two days to fully explore the island. We decided on the southern route, which started us off towards American Camp. I found what appeared to be a side road that would take us down south, so we hopped on that and it was a lovely meandering through the woods and homes on a tiny little road. It popped us back out on the main road and I saw it was a private road, but, eh, whatever. There was also a trail right at the junction with the main road and it didn’t say no bikes, so we popped on that, but turned around shortly thereafter, as although it was doable on the bikes, it was going to take us too long, so we popped back out on the main road. We arrived at American Camp, which was an encampment of the US Army back in 1859-1874 to counterbalance the English Camp on the north side of the island. Apparently there was some conflict about the water boundary between the two nations that started with a pig … more to come on that as we hopefully find out what the heck that was about.

Next stop was South Beach for a quick walk in the black sands and skipping some stones. We partially regretted this little stop as it meant going down a large hill, which we then had to climb right back up.

And, the last stop on our short tour was the Cattle Point Lighthouse on the southern tip of the island.

And now to relax in our humble little abode (tiny studio) with an amazing view over the water. Tomorrow we will be off to explore the North and West sides of the island.