The energy with which Shobhit and I approached our day trip to Lopez Island yesterday was kind of the opposite of that at the Gabriel & Groomsmen's weekend there April 5-7, which was decidedly chill. I wouldn't say that Shobhit's and my day there was
heated, per say (it wasn't even all that stressful, really), but we sure as hell packed a lot in. This was much closer to the day trip we took
to San Juan Island in 2019 (that year being my Birth Week "boating & waterfronts" theme), where Shobhit got a hold of a
map of the island with numbered points of interest on it, and we did a whirlwind tour of them all over the several hours we had on the island.
Honestly, I was the one who kind of spearheaded the same approach this time around, with Lopez Island. Once we were at the ferry terminal in Anacortes, I left the car to go inside and browse the booklets, pamphlets and brochures, and I grabbed what appeared to be the same San Juan Islands brochure we had used in 2019. The
Lopez Island map has a bit fewer numbered points of interest than San Juan Island's (seven versus thirteen), but still more than enough to fill a day. We went mostly in the order of the numbered locations, except I shifted #7 to #3 so it would be a more direct round trip around the island; I suspect the map places the Lopez Islander Resort number last with the idea that people will be staying overnight and it's a suggested place to stay.
I had two more points of interest of my own not on the map that I wanted included, stretching the number of stops to nine. Shobhit was interested in seeing the AirBnB where Gabriel, Garret, Andy, Brian and I stayed at on my last trip there, but when time started to get tight mid-afternoon we scrapped that one. In the end it was the only stop we scrapped, although we later discovered we could have totally included it. I'll get back to that.
First, I should mention that for San Juan Island ferries, you pay fares only westbound (from the mainland to the islands) but not eastbound, so the $40.50 fare for vehicle and driver, plus another $15.85 per passenger (that's me), doesn't sound so bad if you split them in half and apply each half to both directions. It does still get a bit confusing though because Washington State Ferries has pretty widely varied fares depending on the route. You also are recommended to make a reservation for the westbound ferry, and I did indeed do that: for the 10:35 a.m. ferry out of Anacortes. There are no reservations available eastbound, which is first-come, first-served, and can therefore get tricky with timing. Again, I'll get back to that.
I knew that Shobhit would want to go to Christianson's Nursery in Mount Vernon or plant starts, and he wanted to go to Schuh Farms or produce, both of which open at 9 a.m. and then close at 6:00. Aiming for the 5:00 ferry back, there was no real hope of getting to these stores after being on the island, so the only hope was to stop by right when they opened. This meant leaving home no later than 7:30 a.m. I even had this slight hope that we could get out by 7 a.m., but even getting out of bed around 5:00, that didn't happen. Still, we wound up ahead of schedule, getting to Christianson's at around 8:45, where their plant starts were already outside anyway, allowing Shobhit to make his choices before they officially opened, pay right after they opened at 9:00, and then get over to Schuh Farms shortly thereafter.
There was another older couple getting out of their car at Schuh Farms as Shobhit and I were approaching the store front. The lady working there welcomed the other couple, who were a bit ahead of us, and the older lady said they had been told they should come there for scones. This got scones in my head, and I decided I had to have one, especially if people were coming there just for that. Shobhit got a couple of vegetables, and then when we looked in the pastries case, he got two of the day-old blueberry scones they were selling 2-for-1, and also bought one of the fresh blackberry scones.
It was the
best scone I have ever had.
From there, we drive the last half hour to the Anacortes ferry terminal, Shobhit getting irritated by all the other cars driving through town and insisting on only going the speed limit. The Washington State Ferries website says you forfeit your reservation if you don't get to the ticket booth by half an hour before sailing time (at which point you're put in the first-come first-served line), and we made it with a few minutes to spare.
Now. Five years ago when we took our day trip to San Juan Island, our ferry arrived at 10:10 a.m. and our return ferry let at about 4:00, giving us six hours on the island. On that day, we crammed in about a third more points of interest in three quarters the number of hours. Yesterday, our ferry arrived on Lopez Island at 11:25, and we aimed for the 5:00 ferry back, which, now that I think about it, was nine points of interest in as slightly
smaller amount of time—five and a half hours. But, we did go back to Lopez Village Market for their huge heirloom tomatoes when we came within five cars of making it on the 5:00 ferry—and then had to wait until the 7:10 ferry. Even on a Tuesday late afternoon in April, the 15-20 vehicle "quota" for the ferry to Anacortes—with other vehicles from San Juan Island already on it—was not large enough. The worst part was that if we had gotten to the terminal even ten or twenty minutes earlier, we would have made it.
And then, when we did get back, there was only a fraction of the demand for the 7:10 ferry. Desperate not to make the same mistake twice, we were back in line by 6:00, only second in line still. But, the 7:10 ferry had far fewer vehicles from San Juan Island on it, and there couldn't have been many more than 10 vehicles total that loaded to it from Lopez.
All of that notwithstanding, I still had a great time. I'd even say it was great enough to make the two-hour delay worth it.
So, these were the stops we made:
#1. Odlin County Park, all of a mile or so from the ferry dock, on the north end of the island. Not the most spectacular spot, but pretty enough, as the entire San Juan Islands region is reliably beautiful. No matter what shore you are on, your view is of other islands across the water from you.
#2. Lopez Village, Again, not super exciting—but the only spot on the island that even resembles a "town," with a small jumble of little businesses, including two grocery stores. This was where Isabel's Espresso was at, the place we went to multiple times on my last trip to Lopez, but Shobhit and I never did go into that one. Instead, we browsed through the few stores that were actually open across the street from there, including a different coffee shop I didn't even know was there, called Lopez Grind. Shobhit got some sort of espresso shot drink called a Dopio. There was also a charming little island bookstore in that building with several little shops. We spent a bit more time than intended in this "business district," particularly after Shobhit decided to walk over and check out a public p-patch, and we wound up chatting with several minutes with a woman who has lived on the island since 2010 and was walking a 13-year-old lab named Blossom. On our way back to the car, we went into a store called Paper Scissors on the Rock, where I had hoped they sold sunglasses—because I stupidly spaced on bringing one of the countless free pair we have in a box at home, but the bright sunny day was getting to my eyes. The lady working there went into the back to find two boxes of sunglesses that had not yet been stocked on shelves for me to rummage through, and I ultimately
found a pair I really liked looking through.
#3. Lopez Islander Resort—this one was a
very quick stop, I jumped out of the car in the parking lot to take
one quick photo, of this motel and restaurant that had been
built in 1952
#4. Otis Perkins Day Park, at the base of a somewhat bulbous peninsula connected by a strip of land
barely wider than the road—and also included a new spot we explored a bit: "Fisherman Bay Preserve—The Spit." This included a
view of the island shore including the giant rock
Gabriel, Andy, Brian and I had stood on while killing time before we could check into our AirBnB. The spit itself looked like a cool place to go explore, including a really long boardwalk we could see stretching out onto it from the distant hill we were standing on. We actually debated going down there, but we were already taking too much time this far into our tour of points of interest, so we decided to move on.
#5 wasn't thought of as such while we were driving, but in retrospect it qualifies: after heading south from Otis Perkins Day Park, Shobhit got a wild hair up his ass and suddenly decided he needed to see the Lopez Island Airport, its "terminal" the
tiniest building you could imagine such a thing to be. I got out of the car to just get a couple photos and then we drove on, passing a US Postal Service vehicle on the way, indicating that a lot of the mail on the island must get flown around rather than traveling by ferry.
#6. Shark Reef Sanctuary, the first of three spots I had already gone to with Gabriel that I thought Shobhit should see. The view from the trail on low-ish cliffs here, with nearby islands and the view of the southern tip of San Juan Island across the water (this is what Shobhit is viewing through binoculars in the shot above), are really beautiful. We walked the loop trail here that takes you from the parking area to the shore cliffs and back, and we were there perhaps twenty minutes.
#7. Agate Beach County Park is what we were headed to as marked on the map, but the park itself turned out to be tiny, and then there were signs for an "Iceberg Point" that I then became intrigued by. It said it was 0.25 miles up the private road that locals were "generously" sharing with visitors (so be nice!). There were to sort of signed points like this, with no obvious parking at the second, but we didn't want to backtrack and then have to walk more, so we parked on the side of the road, thinking this would be real quick. It turned out the 0.25 mile walk was just to the point at which the private land ended and public land began again, and it was another mile out to the point itself—which I would have loved to see, but time we getting really tight at this point. I went down the trail just far enough to get a couple of fantastic shots from cliffsides, this now being at the southernmost tip of the island, and then we headed back.
#8. Watmough Bay was another quick stop, and the second of the three I had already been to. This was far more spectacular for me last month when Andy and I hiked to the top of Chadwick Hill for some of the most stunning views ever, but Shobhit would never be able to handle that steep climb, and we surely had no time for it anyway. We walked the short trail to the beach on the bay itself, quite pretty in its own right, and Shobhit thought maybe he had come here when he went on his camping trip once before we were together. He did his requisite touching of the water and then we headed back to the car.
#9. "Lopez Hill," I had learned online, is actually the highest elevation on Lopez Island, at 535 ft—Chadwick Hill, at 470 ft, is second highest. The key difference, as we discovered, as that Lopez Hill is just a wooded area with no view to speak of. I got one photo after we turned around on Lopez Hill road, still showing
a pretty wide, green area, and then we finally set off for our final destination:
#10. Spencer Spit State Park, which had been my favorite place we got to last month, and still qualifies as my favorite spot on Lopez Island. That said, I deliberately saved this for last so we would be there at low tide, with the expectation that Spencer Spit would actually stretch across to Frost Island. It became clear yesterday that this just doesn't happen anymore. It certainly stretched a bit further than it had last month, but the spit's height wanes petty dramatically far too far away from the rocks of Frost Island, with
quite a lot of water still passing between.
Still, this was where we finally sat
at a picnic table for a late picnic lunch, sandwiches and pasta salad and chai I brought in a thermos that I made before we left. It was all delicious, and although I wouldn't say we rushed, we didn't dilly dally either. It was lovely and the scenery was gorgeous.
We were already not far from the ferry terminal, and we figured we'd be fine getting to it between 4:00 and 4:30 for the 5:00 ferry. Once we parked in our waiting lane for Anacortes, we got out and counted the cars ahead of us: 21. Real borderline. There were two trucks in the lane to our left that ended up being given priority, pushing us back actually to #24. We might have even gotten on that ferry if not for those fucking trucks. But, I guess Shobhit put it best when he said, "It is what it is."
And so, after waiting for just a few minutes, we decided it was low risk to go back to Lopez Village and the Market that had those
giant heirloom tomatoes and buy some. Shobhit also got some red onions. We drove right back, and that's how we wound up #2 in line for the 7:10 ferry. While we waited this time, Shobhit discovered a truck for the same garage door repair company that's fixing the one in our building after a disphit employee at Regents Bakery drive right through the one on 14th Avenue, breaking it entirely off its hinges. Those guys actually had photos of the damage on their phone to share with us, which was pretty interesting.
Eventually we finally made it onto the 7:10 ferry, in the end having spent eight hours on the island, but only really exploring it for about six. We stopped for gas at the Costco in Mount Vernon, Shobhit drove us home, and the cats finally got their dinner about four hours late, at 9:30.
I also got my birthday dessert, after I had spent some time processing and uploading the day's photos: a waffle cone full of "chocolate caramel potato chip banana bread" ice cream, from Salt & Straw, which Shobhit bought just a few days ago, but we saved it for my birthday. It was super delicious. I had no time to write this post until this morning because it was too late and I was too tired, but at least I got my ice cream. Happy birthday to me!
[posted 10:28 am]
