An island in the sun

A couple of years ago, before the days of blogging, Ryan and I spent a fall weekend on Whidbey Island and had a wonderful time (pictures here in my Facebook album since our computer "s**t the bed"--Dad's words--and I no longer have the original files) . We decided to go back this year, and, as I explained to one of my kids, this weekend was carefully planned around the Huskies football schedule. The team was away and we didn't have TV so we (and by we I mean Ryan) listened to the game on the radio.

Kid: "Wait, how did you have radio if you didn't have TV." Me: "It just works that way." (I'm an English teacher, it is not my job to explain antiquated technology to him). Kid: "Does your husband not like football?" Me: No, he likes it a lot, why?" Kid: "Because he went somewhere with no TV during football season." Me: "Yes, but he has a wife to keep happy." Kid #2, absolutely no humor intended: "Who's his wife?"

So anyhow, on with our trip, intended to be a break from crazy high school kids. The obligitory ferry pic:

Obviously, not the one we were riding. Speaking of, here are Harry and Logo on their first ferry ride. Harry is serving as port security and supervising the loading of the vessel.

After settling into our little studio, located on an alpaca farm(!!!) we took the dogs to Double Bluff Beach to check out the water. There aren't a lot of (any) pictures of this since I was mostly concerned with leash-holding, etc. But! I did see a heron! It's a boring picture though, so I'll skip that one.

The view from the window of our place...
















The next day we went hiking to one of the places we both liked on our last trip. It's the giant rock left in the middle of the woods as the
glaciers moved through millions of years ago. There's a great system of trails in the middle South Whidbey called the Saratoga Woods (maps here) where you could wander for hours. (Note: Although it IS just an island and they DO give out maps at the trailhead, it IS possible to get lost on these trails--especially if you only go a couple of hours before dark. And it starts to rain. We learned this lesson last time.)


For lunch, we stopped by the Bayview Farmer's Market. We had Philippino food, coffee that had been roasted the night before--and I bought some yummy tahini sauce from Mr. Mobley's Food Specialties.

Next was perhaps the highlight of the trip for me--a new and exciting coffee shop. Mukilteo Coffee Roasters calls themselves the "Roaster in the Woods" and the "Cafe in the Woods." They weren't kidding. We completely missed this place the first time we looked for it. It's on a very secluded wooded road, but the cafe is amazing, both for atmosphere and coffee. The food smelled delicious too, but unfortunately I was still full from the farmer's market.

One of the best parts about this place was that they had a fully fenced patio that we could let the dogs roam around. So please excuse me while I indulge in some gratuitous greyhound shots...

Harry & Logo sampling the coffee:













Logo's glamor shots...

Harry was REALLY curious about what was going on inside....

While Logo was just curious about everything.















After all this excitement we had two very tired greyhounds.





I'm pretty sure that they weren't technically supposed to be on the bed, but we put a sheet down so they weren't touching the bedding--and you try keeping those two out of a nice cushy bed!


Here, Harry was already cuddled up with Ryan and Logo decided that she wanted to get on board. Because she INSISTS on being at the top of the bed she crammed herself in a tiny little space at the top.




On Sunday morning we went to Marguerite Brons Memorial Park, a huge off-leash dog park just down the road from Bayview. What's most awesome about this park is that is has off-leash wooded trails. The dogs LOVED this. There are no pictures because we spent our whole time chasing after them (it might be fenced, but it's still 15 wooded acres, and those dogs are fast!)

And finally... greyhounds away!

(Okay, you totally can't see it here, but there were two very curious greyhounds looking out at me when I took this picture).






Aw, aren't they cute? My intrepid little travelers!