Sundays Are Free

It was an ordinary Sunday in our quest to “get ready” to get gone, that is to say we got up late, showered at the Big Loo up at the head of the ramp, and eased off to breakfast at a place that Fran loves “MaryAnn’s Kitchen” a little place in an old house somewhere nearly down to One Street but off to the side here in Anacortes where we appear to be stuck right now.  Now my impression of MaryAnn’s Kitchen, formed by our single prior visit was one of pretension, ok food and lousy service so, well, I went along with the idea since at least Fran had one.  Much to my surprise something was different; the service was great, the food really good (I love chicken noodle soup–did I mention it was about lunch time?)  Not to mention the bill was payable without floating a loan; usually required in these parts.

So, after that, and walking back on a gorgeous day we actually hatched a plan for the day!  We would, first, and this is important, admire the wiring work done on the radios last night, then freed as we would be we would research where to “lunch”.  Now that sounds pretty standard but fate intervened and we at first decided to actually leave Fidalgo Island (where Anacortes lies) and venture on a ferry across to Guemes Island just about two football fields away.  It is reputed to have a couple of roads, an overpriced resort and a general store.  Sounds just up our alley.  But wait!  (this is the Fate part) in doing some research on Guemes Is. we discovered (via a cheeky blog by a chick in Seattle) that there was an incredible Fort down on Whidbey Island just a few miles south of here.  And to completely set the hook it was less than a ten-minute drive from our favorite restaurant of all time (well at least recently) at Coupeville!  We, of course, denied that having dinner at the Front Street Grill was a consideration and packed Goldie (see earlier blogs about the “Adventurers” for an explanation as to who Goldie is) with nearly everything we owned in our new waterproof backpack (sagebrushdry.com) and ventured forth for about three miles before one of us was asleep at the switch and missed “The Turn” to head for Deception Pass (more on that sometime) and so wound up in the lovely little berg just south of here with a neat marina and probably some good restaurants.  Moving along, as at this point we were really determined to get “there” (a condition sadly lacking these days) we stuck to plan and after wandering around in the wilderness for perhaps forty minutes, we flew south across the Deception Pass bridge and on to Fort Casey.  Wow, the cheeky Seattle chick was right, this place was really cool.  There were cannons, revetments, dark and foreboding concrete rooms that once housed the powder and shot for the cannons, fantastic mechanisms that we never completely figured out, vistas of Admiralty Inlet, the narrow gut between the Straits of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound, huge expanses of grassy meadows and a lighthouse.  Now for anyone with even a bit of historical curiosity this is a place of wonder!

Fran, of course, had a cool idea involving locating a geocache that was on the park grounds.  After a seemingly interminable and frustrating period of trying to follow the GPS to the hidden little cache Fran did the obvious and went looking for an obvious place to hide the little devil.  It only took a few minutes before she shrieked something that could be interpreted to be “I found it”.

Having enough of artillery and clambering up and down narrow concrete stairs we decided to head for the lighthouse.  Now I have to say I’m a lighthouse junkie but this one, from the outside is one of the most beautiful so far.   Maintained by volunteers, the grounds and building are immaculate.  We missed the closing time but that wasn’t all bad since we improvised a few pictures that we actually like.

Well, enough of park tromping for one day, hunger lurked and we entered into denial that we would go over to nearby Coupeville to our little place we liked so much and have happy hour and a couple of appys and head home.  I, seer that I am, predicted that once slouched behind a table at the windows overlooking some nice bay with sailboats moored out front, we would slide right into dinner.  The appys were beyond wonderful, dinner was great! (better than desert, we watched Baseball on the big screen over the bar.)

And that’s the story of one Sunday in the new life of Fran and Richard, many more to come.