How Slow Can You Go

Today is a big travel day for Russ and me.  Our total travel distance is only 104 miles.  Seems like that should be small travel day unless we were going by covered wagon, which we are not since our horsewoman is not with us.  But even with our rented Toyota Camry, with the unfortunate New Jersey plates the trip is taking ten hours, at the least.

I won’t know for another hour if the trip might actually take 13 hours.  What time warp are we living in you ask?  Welcome to the world of Washington State Ferry travel.

Before I continue this story I want to say that I love my husband.  He has done all the work to plan this wonderful trip.  I have lazily just tagged along.  Trying my best to let go of all my planning genes and just let the journey flow over me.  I am on the left coast and am trying to embrace it.   It is hard.

Now back to the story.  We left our friend’s house at 8:30 this morning and drove the 90 minutes to Point Townsend to catch the ferry to Coupeville on Fidalgo Island.  The bad news came when Russ discovered last night that this was the one ferry out of 22 ferry lines that took reservations after reading all available ferry information for the last few months.

Add the no reservation to the full moon low tide cancellation of the first two ferries of the morning and we were screwed.  We pulled into the ferry line at 9:50 and did not come close to boarding the 11:00 ferry.  Russ was feeling anxious about our travels and my old self would have added to his guilt.  But in my trying to be appreciative, look on the sunny side attitude I was working to affect I told him it will be what it will be.  (Those of you who think you knew me can now pull your jaw off the floor.)

The good news was we were the fourth to the last car on the 11:50 ferry; A sunny short 30-minute ride to the next island.  We arrived at the south end of the island and needed to get to the north end to catch the 3:50 ferry from Anacortes to travel to Orcas Island.  It was only an hour drive from tail to toe to reach Anacortes, arriving at the ferry terminal two and a half hours before the scheduled departure.  All the literature said get to the ferry two hours before hand in the summer.  We were golden.

We approached the traffic controller hut where a lovely laid-back woman gave us a number and told us which lane to get in.  The number was a new thing to us ferry virgins.  Guess what our number was?  It was our standby number, but at least we are standby number three.  So here we sit in our Jersey car, no real food waiting to see if we get on the 3:50 ferry or have to wait until the 7:20 PM which would put us in our bed and breakfast at 10:00 pm, assuming we can find it.

I will report the outcome of this story tomorrow.  But I think I am going back to my old, A-team, planning, knowing all the details self.  It will be way less pressure on Russ.

Note:  For those of you who just want recipes I won’t be cooking for another week.

Please get in contact with your inner hippie and go with the flow.