I had hoped to get a photo of Dad and myself with our bikes, as I always do on our Birth Week Bike Rides—the ninth such bike ride I have now taken with him; out of 16 Birth Weeks he has participated in, over a span of now 21 years—somewhere on Anderson Island with a vista of Puget Sound behind us. In the end, technically, that is what I got: I just took it near the end of our time on the island today, at the ferry terminal. We were still on the island, after all, and Puget Sound is behind us in the photo—and as an added bonus, so is the ferry vessel we rode back to Steilacoom.

This was my second time on Anderson Island, the first having been in 2012 when I went there to officiate Gabriel and Kornelija's wedding. (Ironically, when Lea and the bridesmaids for her and Gabriel's wedding happening this Sunday took their own weekend getaway trip, they also went to Anderson Island—having booked it without knowing that history. Reportedly, it was fine.) I would actually like to return to explore even more of this island that has an area of only just under eight square miles—the island is about four miles north to south and about three miles wide at its greatest width—because, even having managed to spend a solid four hours on the island, Dad and I were only able to stop at about three notable points of interest:

* Anderson Island General Store, apparently the island's only grocery store. It barely qualifies as such and its product selection is a lot more like a convenience store crossed with a gift shop with a tiny deli section, so Dad and I theorized that the island's population of barely more than 1500 must do most of their real shopping on the mainland.

* The Old School House, built in 1883. The one-room school house is now used as a fitness center. I told Dad, "It's P.E. all day every day!" I had been reading the National Register of Historic Places sign hanging in the window when I said that, and Dad thought I had read the P.E. joke on it. Ha!

* Andy's Marine Park. I looked this up on Google Maps and saw a 3-D version of an uploaded photo showing a gorgeous spot in this park along the island's western shore, and I was like: I have got to go see this. It was by far the best spot we saw on the island, absolutely gorgeous.

We had caught the 10:35 a.m. ferry out of Steilacoom, and after Dad had to walk his bike up the hill that comes first after disembarking, we rode our bikes, first to the General Store, then to Andy's Marine Park, happening to notice the Old School House along the way. Much of this route had come from recommendations in this thurstontalk.com article from 2011. We had to skip many of its recommendations—including an apparently great view spot on the southern tip of the island—because the bike ride very quickly had Dad so tired that he would have to get off his bike and walk it (particularly up steep hills), or actually stop completely to rest.

It should be noted that a) Dad has had some recent back problems, although he said it wasn't really bothering him today; b) he's now 68 years old; and c) by far the most pertinently, he has had zero practice with bike riding this year, and I don't think he's taken a real bike ride since the one we took together for my Birth Week last year.

At first I had suggested we aim for the 12:10 p.m. ferry out of Steilacoom, not having any idea what time I'd be leaving from Jennifer and Matthew's house in Union, but said I might be able to aim for the 10:35 a.m. ferry—and then Dad suggested we aim for that one. At first he was clearly thinking that meant we could aim for the 12:45 p.m. ferry headed back, but it did not take long before it was very clear we had no hope of getting back in time for that, especially with the expectation of how much time Dad would have to spend getting off his bike to walk or rest. On top of that, I convinced him to at least ride out to Andy's Marine Park, because I really wanted to see that beautiful spot on the beach. Once we did get there—walking maybe half a mile on a trail after locking our bikes at a bike rack at the trailhead—we both agreed that it was absolutely worth going to.

Being unable to catch the 12:45 ferry back, that meant the next one we could take was 3:15. I later figured out that the distance from the ferry terminal to Andy's Marine Park was all of three and a half miles, so our round-trip bike ride was seven miles. It didn't even take nearly as long as we thought it would to make our way back, even while I also had to get off my bike to get up a couple of the hills back.

We rode back to the General Store, next to which was the Anderson Island Cafe. We decided it was a perfectly good place to get some lunch and kill about an hour. We had all of a mile and a half from there back to the ferry.

The weather was rather varied today, with periods of rain and periods of sunshine. We got rained on intermittently while riding our bikes both out to Andy's Marine Park and then back again, although there was only a couple of minutes in which it rained all that hard. It really could have been much, much worse, so neither of us had any real complaints. Best of all, the weather cooperated for us while we hiked the trail through the park to the beach and back, with the sun out almost the entire time—and then, surely because it's still non-peak season and it was an intermittently rainy day, when we were at the beach that stands between the Sound and Carlson Bay, we were out there all by ourselves, no one else there. We even saw only one guy on the trail, someone doing landscaping of some kind. We also noted that the trail was meticulously well maintained.

In the end, I really had a great time, and was really glad we went there. It wasn't the greatest bike ride we ever did, honestly—Dad is even, for the first time, suggesting that next year we not do a bike ride, and do a hike somewhere instead—but Carlson Bay alone made the entire day worth it. That spot was spectacular.

Dad drove me back to Olympia once we got back on the ferry—he had suggested this rather than driving separately, so we could maximize the time we spent together—and, after killing some time until heavy northbound traffic to Seattle thinned out a bit, I drove back home.

All told, we had about eight hours together today—thanks to my getting to the house in Olympia at 9:00. This meant leaving Jennifer and Matthew's place at about 8:15, much earlier than I normally would. Jennifer told me last night she had prepared French toast casserole for breakfast, and I felt a little bad when I said we were going to have to eat it rather early.

In the end, I needn't have felt bad about it: Jennifer had found a movie to watch on cable last night, the 1988 film Mystic Pizza which I had actually never seen (it was okay), and literally all three of us barely stayed wake just past 10:00 to watch it. Matthew had been up since 3 a.m. because he had to drive to Centralia to pick up some bees for his beehives. I think Jennifer just gets up early most days, and I kind of do too. I did get out of bed first this morning, at about a quarter after 5:00, but by the time I was done getting ready in the bathroom at 6:15, both Jennifer and Matthew were up and in the kitchen, baking the French toast casserole and cooking the blueberry syrup on the stove.

This actually have us a couple of hours to visit and eat (a very delicious) breakfast before I left this morning, so that worked out well. I thanked them for having me, and said to Jennifer, "and I'm sorry I . . . fucked you up," a reference to her soreness after the walking we all did on the beach at Harstine and McMicken Islands yesterday. She just laughed, and I was on my way.

[posted 9:40 pm]