I’m up before everyone else, having been awakened by the sound of hooves creeping around a meter from my head outside the window. I’m pretty confident we’ll make the early ferry now, especially when we found out we could leave our sheets in the dryer rather than fold them. That alone shaves an hour off our departure time.

Judging by the pre-dawn horizon we’ll have yet another beautiful day. Should be a great view from the Seattle Sky Needle, one of many possible destinations today.

I’ll check in when the Internets allows.

We enjoyed our last day here on Orcas Island! Its hard to accept we must leave it in favor of the real world beyond. The whole experience has been simply wonderful. Better than I could’ve hoped.

I can see why we decided to return here after our last visit seven years ago, though a week’s visit isn’t nearly enough. The slower pace here gets into you and makes you dread crossing over to the mainland again. I think of the recent hours I spent crawling along I-95 and then I think of strolling around downtown Eastsound. No contest!
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In a rare morning, I’m the only one awake at 6 AM. The sunrise over the Strait of Juan De Fuca proved too alluring to me. Two photographs later and I could relax. I’ll miss waking up to a view of Mount Baker in the distance. It really has been beautiful here.

Yesterday we opted to skip naps for the kids, in the hopes they would better readjust to East Coast time soon. They did wonderfully, being sports about our activities and never complaining.
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We started our day by going to see Ron’s beautiful property on Buck Mountain. Stunning view, Ron! After that, we drove to Mountain Lake for a fun hike to the dam and back. On the way down, we rented a rowboat and rowed across Cascade Lake to see the bridge being rebuilt.

Now its a quick lunch before heading back to downtown Eastsound to see the starfish at low tide. Gotta make the most of our time left!

We didn’t have specific plans today, so we took up Ron’s suggestions and headed over to the Rosario Resort to visit the museum on the second floor. Calling it a museum is a bit of a stretch, as there are lots of 8×10″ historical photographs on the walls but scant items to view, other than the house itself which is gorgeous. There was a model of the USS Nebraska (BB14), built by the Moran Brothers shipyard and the only battleship ever built in Washington state, and a model of the Moran Brothers shipyard. There was also a display case with gauges and buttons from the USS Nebraska in it as well as a large desk, from which I imagine Robert Moran contemplated his business empire.
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Once again, we enjoyed a stunning sunrise over the water as we awoke near 6 AM PST. It looks like our string of perfect days is not quite over.

We’ve got no real agenda today. Possible visits include the Rosario resort, Turtleback Mountain, or maybe a visit to Deer Harbor to look at the boats. A return visit to Cascade Lake (and park) is definitely in our future.

Today is Wednesday, the half-way point of our vacation. We’ve done a ton of things already and still have plenty more we can do. The weather has continued to be unbelievably perfect: totally clear with gentle breezes and temperatures around 70 degrees Fahrenheit. We couldn’t have picked a better time to be here, weather-wise.

The neighbor’s WiFi is now reachable again, too, which saves me a drive to town to post this. I think there is some sort of ducting going on which makes this access point accessible from here occasionally. I could not locate it at all yesterday, no matter how I tried.
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I’m in the parking lot of the Orcas Island Library, which offers free WiFi access. It turns out the neighbor’s WiFi that I’d been, um, security auditing the past few days disappeared yesterday afternoon, so we’ve been offline for a while. The library’s network doesn’t seem to like picture uploads, either, so you won’t see much until I can solve that particular problem. Shame, too, as its absolutely gorgeous here.
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