The title above isn’t just a tongue-twister, but a summation of our very active Memorial Day weekend. Friday afternoon, we packed up the car, bid the cats and birds farewell then zipped to Mount Vernon. After buying food at the local Safeway, we watched the thought-provoking flick “Rendition” then toddled to bed.

The next morning, we blew up our inflatable canoe and drove to Big Lake, a 545-acre lake, just south of Mount Vernon. Below is a picture of Rich looking very nautical on Big Lake.

In the 1970’s there were only a few cabins and trailers around the lake. Many of these vacation get-aways have since been replaced with large houses that seem out-of-place with brick facades, turrets, three-stories, and lavish landscaping.

Even though the shore is crowded with homes, there were only a handful of drift (fishing) and small motor boats on the lake along with an occasional jet ski, kayak and canoe. We had a fabulous time, padding around the lake, looking at houses, talking, eating cheese and crackers, and sun-burning the tops of our legs!

After loading the canoe back into the truck, we headed to Whistle Lake on Fidalgo Island. From our lot, this lake is a few mile hike through the Anacortes Community Forest Lands. Faster access is on the other side of lake where a parking lot is located. Looking at the map, we thought it was a quick half-mile stroll; however, as our arms grew longer, straining to carry the canoe, we wondered about the wisdom of our decision. Once we got the canoe into the water, we quickly forgot our pains.

The lake is pristine with towering cliffs, lush vegetation, and lily pads with bright yellow flowers (left). We were the only boat on the lake; although, quite a few young, brave souls were swimming in the icy water. On the shores were hikers, sunbathers, and kids with little fishing poles. There was also a group of teenagers (below), jumping into the water from a 20-30 foot cliff. I don’t know where they found the courage!

As we paddled towards the opposite end of the lake, I saw a dark figure frolicking in the water. A large, dark brown bird then swooped overhead. I commented to Rich that it might be a bald eagle, although; it didn’t have a white head. As we neared the end of the lake, we saw a large bald eagle near the shore. Its outstretched wings must have been what I saw from a distance.

Aware of bald eagles in the area, we started to scan the trees. Sure enough, we spotted five bald eagles in a grouping of trees! The female eagles weigh 10-14 pounds and have a 6.5-7-foot wingspan. The male is smaller, weighing 8-10 pounds. Young eagles are dark brown with varying degrees of white mottling. They don’t get their white head and full adult plumage until they’re 4-6 years old. In addition, they can live up to 40 years!

We spent quite a bit of time observing the eagles then paddled back to the other side of the lake to start the 1.3 mile (according to the Web) trek back to the parking lot. When we got back to the truck, a group of teens who’d been following behind exclaimed, “Good job. We didn’t think you had it in you!”

Our arms sore and legs burnt, we drove to Mount Vernon for left-over Mexican food and a controversial movie, “Body of Lies.”

Sunday morning, refreshed and energized by the clear weather, we drove back to Anacortes to catch a ferry to Guemes Island for the “pedal” portion of our weekend. The ferry carries just 22 cars and has a small passenger area. We stayed on the deck with our bikes where Rich struck up a conversation with a man who’s lived in the area for decades. I delighted in the scenery and people-watching. There were several passengers with carts and wheelbarrows of food and necessities that they’d purchased in Anacortes. Depending on your age and time of the year, it costs $1 to $4 for a roundtrip ticket as a passenger or with a bike. The cheapest fare for a car and the driver is $6 and up to $9 in the summer.

Because there’s only a small patch of commerce on Guemes, consisting of a general store/restaurant/gas station/bulletin board, almost everything that people need has to be purchased in Anacortes or the surrounding area. The rest of the island is private homes, a rustic resort, an art gallery, and a small stretch of public beach. Barely 600 people live on the island year-round; although, the population doubles during the summer months. 

Because there are few people and even fewer cars on the island, Rich and I had a very pleasant and relaxing* peddle around the island. Don’t I look relaxed above?

Along the way, we chatted with various folks. We even stopped at the Guemes Island cemetery where I struck up a conversation with an elderly woman who grew up on the island. Her husband was placing flowers by the graves of four generations of his family.

Unlike the Texas cemeteries that I’ve visited, people on Guemes lived until old age. I saw only a few gravestones for infants, children and people younger than sixty! Hard work and healthy Pacific Northwest living can lead to a long life.

After leaving the cemetery, Rich noticed that the back tire of his bike was flat. He pumped it up, but it flattened within minutes. We progressed from the “peddle” to the “pump” portion of the weekend where every few minutes, Rich inflated the tire, rode like crazy then repeated the process. Miraculously, after pumping up the tire half a dozen times, the “goo” inside the tube must have sealed the hole and the tire stayed inflated.

One of the best "things" I saw on Guemes was the screaming red salt-box house above. The barn and chicken coop to the left of the house had extremely weathered wood with red trim. The mailbox and a lone Adirondack chair to the right of the house were also painted bright red.

After getting back to Anacortes, we zipped back to Mount Vernon to close up the house and head south to Kirkland. The cats were happy to have us home so they could go outside and torment bugs and patronize with raccoons. 

Memorial Day marked another opportunity to “paddle.” We loaded the canoe (deflated) into our Honda FIT and headed to the University of Washington Arboretum. Developed with Works Progress Administration (WPA) funds in the 1930’s the 230-acre features 20,000 trees, shrubs and vines, including 139 plants on the endangered species list.

This time of year, the rhododendron, azaleas, magnolias, and dogwoods were blooming. We snapped dozens of pictures of their splendor. Afterwards, we blew up the canoe and dropped it into the water. We paddled through a marshy area near the arboretum and observed many turtles, ducks, and Canadian geese enjoying the sun.

We then headed across Union Bay to University of Washington, through the Montlake Cut and into Portage Bay. We typically sail from Kirkland, west on Lake Washington towards Union Bay so it was a treat to see another part of the waterway.

Portage Bay is the home to several prominent yacht and sailing clubs, marinas and million-dollar houseboats. It was a hoot to paddle by large yachts and glide down the rows of houseboats. I felt like a snoop peeking at the houseboats, but their alleyways of water is no different from a land-based house on a street. The houses varied from modernistic multi-storied, aluminum-sided homes with chic furnishings to run-down shacks packed with years of detritus, rotting decks, and listing foundations.

After a few hours of site-seeing, we drifted down the bay while nibbling on crackers, cheese, carrots and cookies. With our energy restored, we flexed our muscles and paddled back through the Montlake Cut, which has very choppy water, caused by the wakes from the endless stream of boats, kayaks and canoes going to-and-from Lake Washington.

Back on shore, we deflated the canoe and zoomed back home where Rich immediately changed into work clothes and replaced the window in our laundry room (two more windows to go) while I tended to laundry, cooking, cleaning, and ironing.

By 7 p.m. we both “plopped” in front of the TV, tired from three days of paddling, peddling, and pumping.

Below are more pictures of azaleas and rhododendrons from the arboretum and our Mount Vernon house.

*Rich made me ride my bike up the hills even though I complained bitterly. I had the physical strength, I just didn’t like the physical PAIN!

Last weekend, when driving back from our camping trip, we passed through the flower fields in Mount Vernon and the surrounding area. The tulips were very late this year and had just popped open so we thought they’d be in full bloom on Saturday.

Every year, Mount Vernon has a month-long tulip festival, which attract zillions visitors and causes horrific traffic jams. Because the bulbs were slow to mature, this year’s festival was extended through May 3^rd.

The forecast called for rain, which came true along with heavy gusts that made it very challenging to pedal, even on flat roads. What we didn’t anticipate was seeing hardly any tulips! Evidentially, the warm weather the week before motivated the tulips to burst fully open. Because the growers are primarily interested in the bulbs, rather than the flowers, they don’t allow the tulips to wilt on the plant, which takes energy from the bulb.

Once the tulips are fully open, scores of migratory workers quickly pluck off and throw away the flowers. A field of spectacular bulbs can be “plucked” within hours. The bulbs are then left in the ground for six weeks then carefully dug up, cleaned, packaged, and sold between September and December. 

One of largest growers of tulips, daffodils, and irises in the world is Roozengaarde with 1,200 acres of fields and 15 acres of greenhouses in the Skagit Valley. Their show garden contains over two hundred thousand spring-flowering bulbs.

We were hoping to see fields of tulips and daffodils, but most had been picked or no longer blooming. And to see the show garden or wander into a field, you needed to pay $3 to $4 per person!

Happily, we were able to see several fields of red tulips from the road. And because we were on bikes, we could stop on the shoulder of the road and snap some pictures for free. 

The route we took on our bike, passed through La Conner, a very "arty" town on the Skagit River, across from the Swinomish Indian Reservation. The town is brimming with art galleries, restaurants, boutiques, bed & breakfasts, snazzy garden shops, and small upscale grocery stores. 

We enjoyed homemade root beer and a Mediterranean chicken pizza with chicken, tomatoes, spinach, and feta cheese at the La Conner Brewing Company before pulling on our windbreakers and pedaling back in light drizzle.

Along with seeing the tulips, we passed several fields that were being planted with potatoes, wheat, leeks (being harvested), and other early spring crops. It’s cool to live in an agricultural area!

Equally cool is to live where you can grow handfuls of flowers with little efforts! Check out a bouquet I picked of tulips, daffodils, narcissus, and hyacinth from my front yard!

In a couple of weeks, I’m looking forward to cutting peonies and hydrangeas from my yard!

On Saturday afternoon, Rich and I visited the Skagit Publishing open house in Mount Vernon. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see a press used to print newspapers.

The 125-year old company had recently located to a new $13 million, 59,0000-square-foot building, which was designed to house the newspaper, sales, advertising, and commercial printing staff along with an enormous press and associated equipment for cutting, sorting, and collating the four newspapers produced by the company. Below is a picture of Rich learning about the machine that inserts flyers, ads and other inserts into newspapers. 

The printing press is over two stories high and must be the length of a football field. Giant rolls of newsprint are feed into the press, which prints in four colors — cyan, magenta, yellow, and black — then folds, cuts, collates, and stacks the sections of the newspaper.

While I’ve seen many presses that are used for producing brochures, business cards, posters, and other printed pieces, I’d never seen a press for newsprint. Because of their size and expense there are probably only a handful of such presses in a state or region.

Here’s a picture of Rich and I with the Skagit Publishing mascot. Notice my stunning Mickey Mouse overalls from Goodwill. Rich and I had earlier been doing yard work at our Mount Vernon house… actually, we usually dress the Mr. and Mrs. Bumpkin!

The flyer we got from Skagit Publishing lists these facts about the building:

• Eleven miles of CAT-6 computer wire
• Press foundation contains 56, 16-inch diameter cast concrete pilings up to 80 feet deep
• 50,000 tons pre-load dirt
• 1,700 cubic yards of concrete
• 75 tons of reinforced steel
• 616,000 pounds of structural steel and metal building components
• 307,000 lineal feet of wire containing 38,000 pounds of copper
• 33,500 lineal feet of conduit

The start of April usually signals the beginning of the Mount Vernon Tulip Festival. However, Mother Natures thought otherwise. This year, she brought months of unusually cold, wet weather. As a result, few tulips are in bloom and festival activities are on hold.

Driving out to our lot on Anacortes, however, we passed a few fields of daffodils, which were very dramatic. 

I can’t wait until the tulips bloom. We plan on riding our bikes through the area to see the many fields of not only tulips, but irises, daffodils, narcissus, and other spring bulbs. Click here to learn more about the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival and see pictures. 

During the Labor Day weekend, we took our motor home to our Anacortes lot to relax, hike, hack at the vegetation, and see what it feels like to spend the night on our lot.

As soon as we parked our motor home, we scampered on top to check out the view. Our 1.5 acre lot has a few high points, but we’d never seen the view from what will be the second story of our planned house. We were amazing at what we could see… the Puget Sound, Mount Baker, and the refineries on March Point.

After a  restful night, we enjoyed a hearty breakfast before packing up for a hike to Whistle Lake… a few miles from our lot. First, Rich decided to make the bed and quickly noticed nibbled holes in the sheets and a pillowcase. We haven’t used the motor home for over two years, when we drove it from Texas to Mount Vernon. We evidentially brought a mouse or two from Texas who made a nest in our bed!

Rich did a quick check in the drawers and cupboards of the motor home to see whether we had a major mouse infestation. Nope. Our lone mouse or mouse couple must have either died or snuck outside to freedom.

Either though we’ve hiked around Whistle Lake, Rich wanted to try out his new GPS. Seemingly, every two minutes, he stopped to check our coordinates. It made me a bit loony because we had a map that showed where we were going… and the trails are clearly marked.

At one point, Rich got so wrapped up in playing with the GPS that he zigged when we should have zagged. I didn’t say a word until fifteen minutes later when Rich realized that we should have reached the lake… instead of being deep in the woods. Ha!

I had seen the map so I knew that we’d eventually reach the lake. And when we did, we enjoyed a nice picnic lunch before heading back to our lot to start cutting trails and deciding where we want to eventually plant our gardens.

In the coming years, we look forward to more enjoyable days and evenings "roughing" it on our lot… before we start building our dream house.