Orcas Island to Lopez Island Biking Day:
30.46 miles, 2362 ft ascent, 9 hrs. 19 min.
Daily Drena: The Seven Three Minute Stops
Jill and Charles provided a gourmet breakfast this morning, of honey-glazed croissant with fresh jam, steelhead trout, egg frittata, and berries from the garden. We devoured it, as per typical on our biking vacations. We then headed out on our journey back to the potters in the enchanted forest to get some new plates we had been thinking about. After the potters’, we stopped at Turtleback Mountain to bike up the northern trail to a point for a view overlooking the valley.
Next up was Deer Harbor on our way back to the ferry landing. This is definitely more of a marina than a town as there is a post office, general store, and boats galore. I believe there was one or two restaurants as well, but not much else except pretty views of the oceanside.
We were able to connect to the WiFi at the harbor and learn that our boat was running an hour late, so we first stopped at the farm stand we saw on the way over to have a peek. Lorena found a banana blueberry popsicle to munch on so we hung out here for a few minutes. There were numerous stops along the way for flower photos overlooking the seaside, but we were still supposed to arrive at the ferry landing about 15 minutes before schedule. However, when we crested the hill, I saw a ferry just starting to head out and sure enough, it was ours. Apparently they had made up 20 minutes somewhere and since we didn’t have any cell service along the way, didn’t get any updates until too late.
So, we had about 3 hours to kill until the next ferry so wandered into the grocery and gift shop, then sat down for a bite to eat at the local cafe. There was not an ice cream shop, but we found a pint of the local ice cream at the grocery and ate on the hill overlooking the landing. There were numerous rabbits about that people were hand feeding carrots and they didn’t even run when a dog got near them…there must not be many predators on the island.
After the ferry ride, we sat down to get our bike gear on for another couple mile bike ride to our stop for the evening, Lopez Farm and Cottages. Upon arrival we were greeted by one of the two farm cats who led us to our tent for the night; what service! She bounded off after a while, but returned when we were getting ready for bed and curled right up with us for almost the entire night.
