Leaving home

... and wondering if I've also taken leave of my senses.  I walked around for a final check.  Are the water heater and furnace both turned to their "vacation" settings?  Check.  Fresh batteries in the smoke detectors?  Yep.  Front room lights on autopilot? A-OK. 

But do I really want to leave behind the endless supply of hot water?  Or the comfy new mattress I bought last October?  I really like the high-definition television set hanging on the bedroom wall, even if I mostly read Elizabeth George mysteries rather than watch TV.  I'm already feeling nostalgic and I haven't even left the house.

Moreover, the house itself sensed that I was abandoning it.  One day prior to departure, in protest, the beveled bathroom mirror, which had been in place for 65 years, came unglued, fell to the floor and shattered.  1941 bathroom mirrors are substantial.  This one must have weighed 20 pounds.  Something to fix when I get back home, I told myself.

On the road to Anacortes

Not according to schedule at 9:00 am, but at least it was before 12:00 noon (barely).  I kept thinking of details that I had either forgotten or had never thought about in the first place.  Although I had stayed up late the last three nights, I still hadn't put the crowning  touch on packing for a bike tour: reweighing all the gear in its final configuration to make sure that each pannier carried roughly the same weight. 

Once I was out the door and on the road, the die was cast.  No use worrying about what I did or didn't pack, or what I might have forgotten.  It would just have to work itself out somehow.  Once I began to see things from this fatalistic perspective, I finally began to relax.  Just a little, anyway.

I picked up Brad in Vacaville around 1:30 pm.  I was supposed to have been there around 10:00 am, but I was three and a half hours late because "the traffic was terrible".   We drove about an hour before we stopped for lunch on the side of the road at a designated rest area.  Brad had procured everything a civilized person might require, including a tablecloth to cover the cement picnic table.

Instead of arriving in Ashland in the mid afternoon as originally planned, we barely arrived in time for before dinner cocktails at Mary Pat and Hollis's house.  Not only did they provide us with deluxe guest accommodations (a entire apartment to ourselves), they also regaled us with a wonderful home-cooked dinner.  All in all, a day that had started in panic mode finished very enjoyably and totally relaxed.  Unlike the past four nights, I didn't wake up at 4:30 am thinking about all the things I still had left to do.  I slept a very sound eight hours.

The next day's destination was Portland.  It wasn't such a long drive so we didn't have to get on the road too early.  The weather worsened as the day progressed, and my spirits followed the weather  pattern.  Intellectually I knew my trip would have real weather (unlike the long summer droughts in California), but my fantasy of it was all sunshine and blue skies with puffy white clouds.  By the time we got to Portland, it started to rain, but fortunately, only after we transferred the bike and all of our luggage to the motel room.  Brad took off for Powell's Book store downtown, and I drove over to visit my friend Doug whom I hadn't seen in far too long.  Doug did wonders for my flagging spirits, thanks to his own irrepressible high spirits, his mastery of the kitchen (newly remodeled), and his generous servings of French champagne.

It also threatened to rain on Friday, our final car travel day, but it never did.  In fact, in what I hope will be a good omen, the gray and gloom lifted at the end of the afternoon as we approached Anacortes.  You could look out over the water and see the tree-covered San Juan Islands basking in the late afternoon light.  It was stunning.

Patricia used to work at the Bank with me, but retired and relocated to Port Townsend, WA --- about a two-hour drive from Anacortes.  Being a local, as well as generally wonderful person, Patricia took it upon herself to make our motel reservations as well as the dinner reservations.  She did an excellent job of both. 

On the way to dinner, we scouted for a good location for the next morning's "Wheel Dipping Ceremony".  There is a state park on the westernmost side of Fidalgo Island (where Anacortes is located), and when we saw the beach there, we knew we didn't have to look any further.  It was picture perfect with easy access to the waters of the Pacific Ocean. 

The final pre-departure meal was down at the waterfront at a seafood restaurant called the Fidalgo Bay Cafe.  Patricia and I both had the "house specialty", an almond-encrusted halibut, while Brad had a prawn pasta.  With such a lovely setting, they could have cheated on the quality of the food and gotten away with it.  But they delivered on all counts, and we waddled out of the place with satisfied appetites.

 

If you want to see all the photos, click here.