Ann and Fletch Got Away

After 112 days of very social isolation, despite Zooming and patio-apart cocktails with friends, we were ready to be out of this house. Inslee finally granted partial release: we took off Tuesday for five days on San Juan Island, as close to travelling to a different country as we were allowed – and those “foreigners” speak English.

Years back we’d sailed into Roche Harbor to check-in with customs on return from Canadian waters and had spent a couple of weekend get-aways in Friday Harbor, but today, the inland island was still terra incognito. What a revelation: San Juan’s is a rolling countryside rising to 1,000’, a mix of second growth forests and open meadows, lovely valleys dotted with freshwater lakes, ponds, barns, rugged cliffs above empty beaches, wild flowers abundant, all anchored by the two tidy albeit touristy harbor towns, Roche and Friday.  An altogether charming place.

We based ourselves in-between the two, at Lakedale Resort.   Swimming beach, fishing and all sorts of floating craft on offer plus lots of land activities – Ann and I played a mean, late afternoon Bocce match before adjourning to our private deck for cocktails.  Our lodge room was well furnished, a great king bed and roomy bath, a fireplace to toast off the morning chill.  Despite the masking and separation regimen, staff were pleasant, personable and proficient; they remembered our names and we theirs. 

Lakedale

Some eighty acres encompassing three private lakes, centered on a lovely, ten room lodge B&B, and offering a wide range of family vacation options – log home rentals, clusters of well-furnished yurts, and lakeside camp sites.

   

Twenty-five years ago, I had consulted with NBBJ on land use plans for development of Roche Harbor, the old ramshackle lime kiln port, and restoration of the turn of century Haro Hotel but it all fell apart when the would-be developer got into an expensive divorce. Rich Komen and Saltchuk picked up his vision.   It is a hip, special place.

A bit of the new Roche

I was astounded to see the restored hotel flanked by Craftsman-style homes, wonderful landscaping throughout the village, good restaurants and bars, expanded marina and maritime amenity and service businesses.

We dined one night on the deck shared by Madrona Bar and Grill and McMillan’s Dining Room (that’s Komen).  Delightful. An island specialty is fried calamari, of course, but these are mantle steak strips lightly battered, succulent and sweet.  We watched the sun set and were bemused at the kitschy flag lowering ceremony complete with recorded Sousa, a cornet Retreat, and Taps. Ann got dewey-eyed.  Trump would have loved it, except they honored the Canadian Maple Leaf alongside the Stars and Stripes which would have made him crazy (bad grammar: crazier.)

   

Roach Harbor boasts the San Juan Island Sculpture Garden.  Now any Northwesterner knows to be wary of "sculpture gardens" for most are populated by chain saw totem poles, chain saw patriotic eagles and chain saw bears sporting fishing poles.  Not so here. What a surprise!: twenty acres of lawn, meadow, forest trails, and ponds siting over 150 sculptures from the Northwest’s preeminent sculptors (including  my mentor, coach, teacher Sabah al Dhaher.) The sculptures are for sale, ranging from a couple thousand to over $60k, with the median, I estimate, somewhere around $9k. This is serious stuff.

Peppered among them are 57 epigrammatic, witty poems from Catching Thoughts by islander D M Jenkins, a retired Smithsonian zoologist with a soul. His insights make one pause, reflect and contemplate. The not-for-profit Sculpture Garden is a must-see; a voluntary contribution for entry; beautifully laid out and maintained; worth at least an hour if not two. We have visited the Hirshhorn, the Vigeland Park in Oslo, the Walker in Mpls, and of course, SAM’s sculpture park, and the San Juan is the best.

English Camp and American Camp National Historic Parks tell the tale of the Pig War and the amicably dual occupancy of the ownership-disputed island. 

English Camp: blockhouse and formal garden

In 1872, the dispute was arbitrated in US favor by Wilhelm the 1^st, of Germany. Too bad his grandson, Kaiser Willy, didn’t profit by the example of not-a-shot-fired arbitration when his turn came in 1914.   

Between English Camp and American Camp, we lunched at Westcott Oyster Farm, shucking our own on the lawn and watching the oysters frolicking in their tide-drenched bags. An employee explained they have to cycle in and out of the water regularly to exercise their muscle.  (Not mussel. Sorry; I couldn’t resist.)  We were shucking and slurping down three-year olds. (In a third-grade pet show, I won best in class with Frisky, a Chesapeake Bay oyster my mother helped me keep alive in a salt-water aquarium. With an eye dropper, you’d squirt a bit of red dye at one end of Frisky and a few minutes later, out he’d squirt it from his nether end.  Vastly amusing. Frisky didn’t survive three years.)

Shuckin' and Slurpin'

South Beach out to Cattle Point

South Beach, Cattle Point, Lime Kiln Lighthouse, Mount Dallas – there are so many picturesque scenes and places, just what the house-bound Ann and I needed.  We saw no whales this time, saw deer and seals but no foxes, and right off our deck, watched a barred owl capture and chow down on a snake as long as he was.

Speaking of Eating . . .

. . ., “restaurants” – what a treat! Places where people actually bring food to your table – we’d forgotten.  And we hit four good ones.  Would highly recommend Duck Soup and Downriggers.  Avoid lunch at the Blue Waters unless your people-watcher gene is dominant over your epicurean one.  The highly rated Coho is just too precious for words.  They try so hard to impress: “mushroom dust”, za’atar spiced carrots”, “ancient grains risotto”, “almond dust”, “beet braised onion petals” and other such nonsense.  Really, the food is quite good, well prepared and artfully presented. If they would just relax and stop trying so hard, they might well live up to their hype.

San Juan Island: if I were 25 years younger, i.e., only 60 and Ann fifty-something, we’d buy a house at Roche and take summer and fall ferry-ride breaks from Mercer, one island swapped for another – if only.