North by Northwest

View from our deck at Ship's Bay

Only a couple hours’ flight, Seattle and Vancouver are common getaway destinations from the Bay Area.  They’d been on our list for years, but we hadn’t yet been there.  The San Juan Islands, on the other hand, we’d never heard of.  But one day Frieda mentioned to a couple friends that we were thinking of finally checking out Seattle and Vancouver and the husband of the pair said, “You really should go to the San Juans.”  So, Frieda did some research and liked what she found. She thought the combination made for a nice mix of urban and rural.  Next thing I knew, we were on a plane.  

We got into Seattle mid-afternoon on a Wednesday, navigated the confusing, inadequately signed terminal to the shuttle buses for the rental car dispensary, picked up a new Prius, and headed downtown.  Our hotel was between Pioneer Square and the waterfront, and after we checked in and got the Prius safely tucked away in their garage, we set out to explore the vicinity.  The Alaskan Way Viaduct, an elevated freeway, passes along the waterfront and gives everything beneath it a dark, grimy, urban jungle cast.   After a couple of beers at an Irish pub, we wandered past the dock where the Washington State Ferries land to Ivar’s, a famous seafood chain restaurant founded in 1938 that’s a Seattle institution.  This one is the flagship location.  It’s a huge place with views of Puget Sound from an open deck at the end.  We sat inside where we had a window seat with a view of the docks.  It was comfortable and our waitress was, if anything, over-solicitous.  We had some clam chowder, steamed clams, and fish and chips.  Everything was good without being exceptional.  We felt it was a place living on its laurels.  

Deer family

The forecast had called for some rain during the week, so I’d brought a pair of rain boots.  While we were in Ivar’s it occurred to me that I’d forgotten to pack a shoehorn, without which it would be impossible to put on the rubberized boots.  So, we set out for the main shopping district to find one.  We walked all the way to Belltown without success, then circled back.  Apparently, shoe horns are nearing extinction.  The people at Target just gaped at me with baffled looks on their faces.  Finally, we ended up at Macy’s just as they were closing where, in men’s shoes, we found the mother of all horns, four feet long if it was an inch, priced, apparently, by the foot at $4, and checked it out at the last open register.  It took us half an hour to walk back to the hotel, adding another mile to the two or so we’d already walked.  We did not see any cruising cabs.  

In the morning we set out for Anacortes in the Prius to catch the ferry to Orcas Island.  The weather was utterly clear.  We got there early, the second car to line up.  By the time the ferry arrived, an hour or so later, scores of cars had joined the file behind us.  The ferry was huge, holding well over a hundred cars, and got us to Orcas in about an hour.  From the ferry landing to Eastsound, the charming main town, was about nine miles, and then another mile and a half to our B&B, a lovely place with a New England feel called the Inn at Ship’s Bay, it sported a view of the Sound and families of deer roaming the grounds.  After checking in, we drove on down the road to Cascade Lake and Mountain Lake in Moran State Park, both picturesque ponds framed by hills wooded mostly with Douglas Fir, trees that can live as long as a thousand years.  We had dinner right there at the Inn, which turned out to have an exceptional restaurant, including some delightful white wine called Siegerrebe, produced over on Lopez Island from a German grape related to Gewürztraminer.  

 

Friday began with dark clouds and light rain.  I wore the rain boots and we left the car on Orcas and took the free passenger ferry to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island where we had lunch and then went out whale watching.  The captain managed to locate a pod of five or six orcas, maneuvered the boat around in front of them, then just cut the engines and waited.  The pod got to within twenty or thirty feet of the boat carrying on with their gymnastics, breaching and doing somersaults and cartwheels as if they wanted nothing more than to show off for us.  It was spectacular!  Eventually I started to get a little sick as we were getting tossed around quite a bit in the open ocean.  But as the pod moved on and their antics subsided, the captain turned back for the harbor and once we got behind the barrier islands the water smoothed out and gradually turned to glass as the clouds began to clear and the sun peeked out.  We caught the 5:30 ferry back to Orcas and had dinner in Eastsound at the Lower Tavern.  

MacKaye Harbor

On the way out of Orcas on Saturday we explored the left lobe of the island, driving down to Deer Harbor before heading for the ferry to Lopez.  On Lopez, after lunch at The Haven, a restaurant way too good for such an out-of-the-way place, we located the Lopez Island Vineyards to secure a bottle of the Siegerrebe, a wine impossibly both floral and dry.  Then we turned south for our B&B near MacKaye Harbor, a peaceful, remote place on the south of the island.  On the way, we noticed the islanders were so friendly they waved just because they didn’t know us.  

English Bay

In the morning we woke to find a deer family breakfasting on the lawn outside our window, just as we had on Orcas.  Our congenial hosts advised us to get to the ferry early, as it was crowded on Sundays, but we nevertheless stopped at Spencer Spit, a marshland park along the way, for a brief hike.  We still got there early, and had a long wait before boarding for Anacortes.  On the way to Vancouver we had a moment of panic after crossing the border when our data roaming crapped out, leaving us with no GPS, a functionality of our phones upon which we have become utterly dependent, despite having gotten along without it for years.  We had to find a place to pull off the freeway to reestablish it (at $5/day).  Then it carried us safely through the confusion of Vancouver to the Sylvia Hotel on English Bay.  

Laughing Sculpture, Morton Park, Vancouver

We began our acquaintance with the West End by walking down Denman Street to Robson.  There was a Safeway on the corner so we picked up some prepared food to take back to our room.  The hotel had originally been an apartment building so many of the rooms, including ours, had kitchens.  With dinner we polished off a fine bottle of Pinot Grigio our hosts on Lopez Island had given us, and it made us too sleepy for further venturing.  

Monday morning, we walked south along the beach to the Aquatic Centre and caught the ferry to Granville Island.  We got a day pass for the ferries so we could hop back and forth across False Creek, an inlet of the Sound, all day.  We wandered around the island until noon when the Granville Brewery opened, then went in to share a flight of ten beers and some excellent French fries.  Finished there, we ambled over to the Public Market, full of all kinds of fantastic foodstuffs.  We shared the best cinnamon crisp we’d ever tasted, then caught the ferry down to Stamps’ Landing for a view of the distinctive Vancouver skyline before crossing again to Yaletown, a posh area with kind of NYC Upper East Side ambiance, for some coffee and groceries.  After dinner we didn’t feel like more walking so we stayed in and watched a colorized version of the original 1937 “A Star is Born” on TV. 

Steam Clock, Gastown, Vancouver

In the morning we checked out of the hotel and drove to Gastown, a West-Village-like area I loved.  We cruised Water Street on foot, bought some t-shirts, had lunch.  I felt very relaxed there, at home.  Afterward we reluctantly drove back to Seattle, playing Tom Petty songs most of the way.  We returned to the same hotel but for dinner walked in the opposite direction from the way we’d gone before and had a delicious meal at a place on 1^st Avenue called Intermezzo Carmine.  It somewhat redeemed the Seattle experience for us, but we still preferred Vancouver. On the way back to the hotel we passed a bar with live music and the band was playing more Tom Petty.   RIP Tom.