Saturday morning we found that the tide had gone out quite a ways, allowing us to explore for critters. Mom and Dad brought a bucket and some digging tools just for that purpose. We flipped over rocks to find crabs and we dug for clams. By the time we were through, Will had a bucket full of an odd assortment of sea creatures. There were clams, a largish crab, a bright green fish, a slippery eel, and a hermit crab. The bigger crab was missing his pincers. He must have gotten the worst end of a fight with another crab at some point not that long before. I took that crab down the beach a ways and showed him to the younger campers from the other cabins who were out on the beach under their parents' watchful eye. They weren't going far enough out to be able to see something that interesting, so I brought it to them. The parents seemed as fascinated as the kids.
The geese came back for breakfast, only this meal was not a pan-handling gig. They were down at the water's edge feasting on exposed seaweed and who knows what else.
Digging for clams...
Notice how close to the end of the dock the low tide comes? Eventually, the owner of the bigger boat on the end moved it out to a buoy in deeper water, because this wasn't even the lowest ebb of the tide!
After we were done messing around on the beach, we all drove into the largest town on the island to be consummate tourists. The town is called Eastsound. You can probably figure out where they came up with the name for it. In the shot above, we are all waiting outside an odds-n-ends type of store while Mom went in to find a book to read. She managed to find three, if my memory serves me.
The local (and only) market in town was called Island Market. Bill picked up sodas for us there and I couldn't resist taking a picture of my cup. Back home the convenience store fountain drink cups are all either Pepsi or Coke. These cups were just another throw-back to a different time.
See what I mean about old-timey feel? These two pictures are of an Inn right in the middle of town.
Across the street from the Inn, there were stairs down to a beach. We were going to go wander on the outcropping of rocks you can see in the distance of the top picture. High tide turns it into an island of its own. Unfortunately for us, there was a conservationist on the beach handing out info and instructing people to stay off the outcropping itself, as there are nesting birds there. Ah, well.
Helena had gotten all dressed up for a day in the town. She wasn't expecting to be tromping through tide pools, and she was somewhat relieved when we turned around to head back.
To illustrate what I mean about this place feeling like stepping back in time, I took the image of a building in town (as seen from the beach with the conservation lady) and shopped it a couple of times...
Today...
...1960...
...1890!
Oh yeah. The pace of this place is much slower than anywhere else I have ever been!
Back at Island Market, we couldn't help stepping out to ask this gentleman if we could photograph his car. It has an electric starter, but can also be hand cranked should the battery fail. He said he drives the car to give his dogs some attention while he is in the store. They love to be petted, apparently, and people who wander over to see the car end up staying to pet the dogs. Ha!
After we were finished being tourists, Mom and Dad headed back to the resort while we headed off to the highest point on the island, Mt. Constitution. There are all sorts of hiking trails up to the top of this 2,409 ft. mountain, but you can drive to the top, which is what we did. I was going to say 'straight to the top', but that would be extremely inaccurate since the road to the summit was full of steep switchbacks.
At the summit, there is a tower that, when it was built in the 30's, took you above the tree line for a 360* view. The trees are substantially taller now, so the view is obscured on one side. Still, a stunning view.
The tower was built by Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps. during the depression.
The views, of course, are stunning!
I forgot to mention this amazing little chocolatier in Eastsound! I tried one in the car on the mountain and they were SUPER yummy! I need to find that card I took from the shop so I can order more! The top of the chocolate is hand painted to identify the filling.
As if the ocean wasn't enough water, here we are at Mountain Lake. Bill wanted to rent a rowboat and spend an hour or two rowing around on this lake, but in order to do so, we were obliged to drive down to Cascade Lake to pay for the use of a boat and pick up some oars. We drove down there and I suggested we just row around on Cascade Lake instead. It was less appealing because it was the local swimming hole and there were lots of people there. In the end we didn't even do that, because the man in charge of rentals told us a rowboat couldn't hold all four of us, but he had a canoe that would (what the?). Then he smashed his own toe shifting a big canoe and blamed it on Bill! Phooey. We just walked away.
Since we couldn't row about on a lake (which didn't really ruin my day, to tell the truth), we decided to hike to Cascade Falls. I wasn't thrilled about that, at first, but I am sure glad we did! More beauty all around.
The weather was just perfect! The shade made it comfortable and the sun made it glow!
We decided to drive to the other extreme end of the island and hiked down to a beach there. This beach was just full of small rocks!
From that beach we could see the ferry route...
Back at the resort, the tide was back in. We didn't really want to eat the clams that we had dug up in the morning (they had been kept in a bucket of ocean water), so Will used them as skipping rocks and sent them back out to bury themselves again. Dad said that would have to become an Orcas Island tradition from now on... skipping clams!
I forgot to mention that Bill was so tired on Friday evening that he went to bed around 6 pm, so he missed the rock stacking that night. He made up for it by creating his own balancing art on Saturday evening.
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