Monday, November 4, 2013

San Juan Islands

The San Juan Islands are a collection of 450 small Islands in the archipelago that is embraced by the Georgia Strait, Puget Sound, and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. They are surrounded by land in Anacortes, WA and the Canadian border. Of these 450 islands of varying sizes, only about 200 of them are named and of
those, only a handful are inhabited. Coming in to this archipelago is like entering another world. It is crisp, green, and the orange-red bark of the madrone trees taint the Island like paint that has been splashed onto a  canvas to give it vibrancy of life. We are content to be here.


 Our days are filled roaming the area on foot. We are staying in a lovely area which is surrounded by the Moran State Forest. There are lakes and waterfalls that surround the areas and we have set out to explore as many as we can.
There is beauty in being off the beaten path. We see deer and rabbit as the scurry across our path. The sound of the waterfalls can be heard long before they are seen. The beauty of this place is not lost on us and we are absorbing as much of it as we can.

We did take a small trip to the town of Olga. It seems Tom's
grandmother Hazel was a resident of this area and was the Postmistress here (we believe) for several years. It is equally quaint and stunning and we find ourselves daydreaming about life here. We were able to stop off at the post-office before leaving and mail ourselves a card from this area which the postmistress hand-cancelled for us.

We have decided that a visit to all the inhabited Islands is a must for us and will put the San Juan's on our "bucket-list". For now, we will savor our time here.

No comments: