We saw whales! Okay, that was the punchline but I had to get it out there. So this day we started off with sleeping in and then a leisurely breakfast of Frosted Flakes (which is apparently our official do-it-yourself travel breakfast). The plan for the day was hiking and seeing whales, so we got the dog's backpack all ready to go so he could help carry our gear. Mr. B though the Beast could carry our water, but once I put our water bottles (two Siggs) in his pack I realized it was too heavy for him. My husband still disagreed with me but finally relented when I put the pack on the dog and he refused to move! So we packed it full of our snacks for the day (no-bakes I made before we left, crackers, granola bars and fruit leather) and his tennis ball, doggie bags (not the tasty treat kind), mini tube of sunscreen (for us, not the dog), collapsible water dish (we didn't want to share dog slobber) and his regular harness. We decided that as the humans of the group, we would carry the water for us all :)
Now that we were packed, we piled into the car and drove out to American Camp. If you are wondering about the patriotism of the name, check wikipedia for more info on the Pig War - San Juan Island has both an American Camp and British Camp. Anyhow, so we got to the park and then set out to see if any orcas were out and about yet today. The Beast took his job as pack mule and trail blazer very seriously! We got out to a great looking point (where we saw a speck of a dorsal fin on our last trip) and camped out to eat cookies and look for whales. After only a few minutes of looking (with the encouraging sign of a clump of whale watching boats nearby) we saw whales! Once we'd seen a few dorsal fins (and presumably their attached whales) surfacing the hubby decided to go and see if the closer viewing point had a trail to it. About a minute after he had set out an orca surfaced less than 100 yards from the shore! So I gathered up the Beast and booked it to join Mr. B on his rocky outlook. From here we watched a pod pass by (not sure what pod, since we didn't have a handy whale watching tour guide with us...I think the sign at the lighthouse had said the K pod was in this area) and saw a couple mom-baby pairs! We even saw a tail flip, and a whole body leap out (what is that in whale terms?!) from a ways away! Basically it was incredibly awesome, and even when we decided that most of the pod had passed by and it was time to continue hiking, I still kept looking out to the water to see more. No pictures though, as I'm sure my timing would have been crap and I wanted to see the live action through my real eyeballs, not my camera screen! We did take one more mini-break to check on the pod though.
So next we hiked down to some of the beaches, which made lovely natural dog parks for the Beast, as he was not about to scramble up the rocks to escape or swim out to join the whale pod! Not only did he get to fetch with the tennis ball that we brought, but he found his own, gloriously water logged ball on the beach - which was a squeaky one to boot. So that kept all of us amused for a while, and we finished off the rest of our snacks.
With the dog exhausted, although still exceptionally thrilled with his life (who wouldn't be?!) we decided to head back to our place and drop off the Beast while we went out to dinner to celebrate our anniversary (which was technically today, which is the 1st). We got a bit sidetracked on our way back and decided to drive out to check out the Southern Beach before we headed back. On our way we saw two foxes! The Beast was pretty much oblivious though and missed his opportunity for interspecies education. So then we made it back to our place and dropped off the semi-conscious dog into his crate and set off to find a nice place for dinner. We walked around the town and decided on either Nice Place #1 or Nice Place #2 for dinner (figured we could splurge a bit, being our first anniversary and all). So we had already walked by NP1 the other day so we went and checked out NP2, which was incredibly difficult to find and randomly located behind some kind of warehouse and not visible from the road. Unfortunately, they were super expensive and the menu was pretty limited and too fancy for our tastes. So we thought we'd go to NP1 as the menu looked pretty amazing yesterday and they had a deal for a multi course meal for two for $70. We were pretty proud of ourselves and trotted over there, only to find out that the restaurant was closed on Sundays. WTF mate?! Now we were annoyed and hungry, which often leads to desperation. So we then settled for an unoriginal location, but dependable since we ate there last year, and had a tasty, filling (but not snazzy) meal.
Finally satisfied on at least a gastric level, we went back to the studio to free the Beast. We spent the evening oh so romantically, watching Mythbusters while finishing our 550+ piece puzzle (damn you random person who did this puzzle last for loosing a piece! who does that?!).
(Teh goggie iz not imprezed wif teh puzzal of kittehs)
No comments:
Post a Comment