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I want to go out for a walk for some exercise and a look
around the area. I am curious as to what kind of place this is.
Lilli wants to walk with me and I agree to take her along
although I know that there will be more talking than walking. We
set off down the street and explore some side streets. The one
we picked turns out to be a dead end next to a little pond very
pretty we both decide. A little further along the main street we
walk along fields of what turn out to be raspberry bushes.
Neatly tied up like wine there are miles and miles of rows of
berries, as far as our eyes can see…
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When we get back to the bus we decide that we would like
to go some other, prettier place and so we “pack up” and go down
to what I hope will be a beautiful place near the water.
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We head back down south toward Fidalgo Island with the
intent to stay at a state park near Oak Island. As we drive over
Deception Pass bridge there are beautiful views of the bay and
the Pacific Ocean to our right. This bridge is absolutely
stunningly curved high over what seem to be two cliffs…with the
ocean on one side and some beautiful inlet on the other. My
hopes are up to find a nice place with a beach!
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Well, somehow my information didn’t line up with reality,
b/c when we get anywhere we don’t find the advertised beautiful
campground. What we do find is a campground off a main road,
that is full anyhow and a beautiful state park which is somehow
lacking any kind of informational person. There is a kid at the
entrance booth in charge of selling firewood who has absolutely
no idea about anything…
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I see a wooden sign. One arrow points to the right and
says “electricity” and some site numbers. The other one points
to the left with only site numbers. For some indefinable reason
my husband takes a left and b/f you can even catch your breath
we realize we are caught on a narrow one-way loop through some
beautiful mountainous forest that offers beautiful campsites for
tents. Now, we most definitely are bigger than a tent. We are
most definitely bigger than just about any RV. What can we do?
There is nothing to do but forge ahead hoping that the road
doesn’t get any smaller…
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Everything would have been fine, hair-raising but fine,
if it hadn’t been for this one turn…a loud crunching sound
brings us to a halt. “What was that” we say at the same time,
eyes widened in horror. As far as good sounds go this wasn’t one
of them. I refuse to go out and check and try to only listen
half way when Steve comes back into the bus. His face says it
all. I don’t need to hear about how the tree is fine, and how
there is a nice trunk shaped indentation in our cargo doors. I
don’t need to see the bark stuck onto the paint to believe it.
I’d rather not, thank you. Especially since this whole thing is
not over yet. This particular very nice tree happens to be in
the middle of a few hundred other very nice and healthy trees,
which happen to be located nowhere near any kind of exit as far
as I can tell. And we still have to go around this bend…my palms
are sweaty, I can feel my heart beat. Worst case scenario: We
have to back out of this woodland maze in a 40 foot bus…I cannot
believe this is happening…just a few minutes ago we were fine…
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Steve is really upset but deals and gets us out of this
part of the park w/o any further incidents.
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I won’t mention that he then goes on to go straight
through to were the sign was pointing to electrical sites…why
not turn right to get back to the main road? Why not stop for a
minute to catch our breath, find our bearings…find s/o besides
that dim-witted teenager selling wood to point us in the right
direction or the hell out of here…? I don’t know the answers and
am dumbfounded to find ourselves in a fairly good copy of the
exact situation I was so happy to have survived a few short
minutes ago…I can feel myself age…again we are in the midst of
campsites that are clearly meant for smaller vehicles. We are
not small. Again we have to go through very beautiful but
dreadfully curvy, narrow, hilly paths with no way out. What am I
doing here???
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Somehow we get out w/o another incident. We decide to
leave Oak Harbor taking our complete inability to find a site as
a sign that we are not welcome here. My disappointment about our
departure is tempered by the fact that we are actually able to
leave.
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When we drive back through the island a quick check with
our campground map reveals that the place that would be most
convenient for us to stay at tonight is in Anacortes…the same
campground we rejected a few nights ago in favor of s/th more
charming. I suppose priorities change. It does have internet
access…
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The children and I go for a walk so Daddy can work in
quiet. I am thinking we might as well walk into town, it didn’t
seem all that far from the campground when we drove by here on
Monday trying to find a Salmon smokehouse in this area. It’s a
nice exercise path along the water and so off we go. After a few
feet I am carrying Jonah, which is fine to a point. We look at
all the interesting rocks and and flowers…we talk up a storm
about anything and everything, about school, about dinner, about
how far we’ve walked already, I keep insisting it’s only been a
half a mile…when in the end it is easily about 3 miles to get
into town. I can’t believe the girls are able to walk this far!
I keep their spirits up with talk about desert and the prospect
of a taxi ride back “home.”
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Once we are in town the consensus points to Taco Bell for
dinner – Yeah! I order a special chocolate chip cake for desert
to take with us and dinner for daddy…the cab ride only takes a
few minutes, just long enough to discover that the cab driver
whose lived here his whole life has no idea what there is to do
in town…when I ask him does tell us though that the mountain in
the distance is Mt. Baker and the oil refineries belong to
Texaco and Shell.
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Back at the camp I make Steve sit with me outside to have
his dinner while the kids gulp down huge amounts of chocolate
chip cake and I let them. For a moment this is actually nice. We
are all gathered at a picnic table with a glass of wine a
candle, the kids run off to play on a little moss covered
boulder a few feet away.
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Steve, meanwhile, is anxious about Chris G. never getting
back to him about the install. He is depressed and I can tell he
is really down. What can I do? I too am anxious about things,
like when the hell is Steve’s work project going to be done?
Idle question, since it was supposed to have been finished
BEFORE we left. But let’s not rub that in…yeah right… |
