Home is a destination

We just had the big Ski to Sea relay race weekend in Bellingham. The race is on the Sunday of every Memorial Day weekend, pretty much since 1911. The total race is about 90 miles, with seven legs. It starts on Mount Baker, with downhill and cross country skiing, followed by running, a road bike and a mountain bike course, canoeing on the Nooksack River, and kayaking from the mouth of the river to the beach here in Fairhaven. 

And then Fairhaven has a big party. The Village Green has booths from non-profits, and music all day on the stage. The place was packed with people coming and going, sitting on the grass for the music or getting something tasty to eat from one of the local restaurant food booths there, or from the Colophon Cafe which has outdoor seating on the Green. The statue of Fairhaven's founder,  Dirty Dan Harris, is always popular. Some of the town center streets are blocked off so that vendors can put up booths. Lots of food choices. I had jerk chicken skewers with mango salsa and salad, and Mike had a falafel sandwich. Other booths have things to buy. Most of it is frankly junk, but some nice things. I bought a hat. There are pony rides and one of those inflated bouncing places for the kids. 

There's more music, with local bands playing all day on the stage next to the beer garden. We got a desperation e-mail on Saturday night asking if we could take a shift selling beer tickets, which we did. I wish I'd taken a picture of the beer garden--which is no way a garden. Basically it's a big section of parking lot surrounded by a high chain link fence, with security guards at the entrance to check IDs, and some tents for shade. But it is way popular, full of people wall to wall. This is a college town, which probably accounts for the fact that so many people find this an entertaining place to be. Really, Fairhaven has a couple of good pubs, and plenty of restaurants where you can get a draft beer. I guess standing on asphalt drinking shoulder to shoulder with a thousand or so people has something more to offer. Anyway, it's a cheerful crowd, and we sold tickets for two hours non-stop before someone relieved us and we got our reward, a free beer.

Down at Boulevard Park, a mile away along a waterfront path, there's a huge car show every year. This picture is from a few years ago, because we forgot our camera this time.

We had perfect weather. Almost 70 degrees. There were a reported 35,000 people in town. That's for an area about 6 square blocks. And we live right smack in the middle of it. When I was a kid I always wanted to live somewhere that people wanted to come. So this is really fun.

Winter Escape Part 2

My previous post about this trip ended as we boarded our ferry to Bequia from St. Vincent on December 16. We got to Bequia at sunset, an hour or so later. While Mike and Noel were collecting our bags, I shot a picture from Noel's taxi on the ferry dock. It was less than a week short of the Winter Solstice. When we were ready to leave Bequia in March, we were very close to the Equinox, and I took another photo from the same spot. Even though the length of the days are closer to equal at this latitude, you can still see that sunset is noticeably farther north at the Equinox.

We were in the Caribbean for a full three months plus a few days, the longest
we've traveled. And instead of island hopping through the Grenadines, between St. Vincent and Grenada, we rented an apartment on Bequia for three months. It's a nice roomy and spotless place, one of two apartments upstairs from Lawson Sargeant's Maritime Museum. Lawson and his wife Mercy built the museum and apartments on the property where Mercy grew up, a block off the harbor-side road at the edge of the villages of Hamilton and Ocar. (Or O'car. Or Ocar Reform. I'm still not sure.) It's not a resort area, but there are a sprinkling of visitor accommodations in the neighborhood. It's about a ten minute walk from downtown Port Elizabeth, but we had a market and bakery practically next door, and close by restaurants too. The market is the pink building, and our apartment is in the white building with the green roof in the background. The harbor is just across the street, viewed from our balcony.

Commando Traveling

I was just in California for a long weekend. The good news is that my flights (two down and two back) were all on time. More good news is that I got to see everyone on my list and had good visits, and my grandkids are still handsome and smart, and the weather was balmy, unlike here at home. There isn't any bad news, except for the overeating.

This was a solo trip, because for Mike it would have been the trip from hell. Lucky for him he was on call for jury duty so he couldn't go along anyway. I flew into Sacramento on Wednesday afternoon and spent two nights with old friends from the years we lived there. On Thursday I hung out with my best buddy from grad school. We couldn't visit as much as we'd hoped, because we spent all afternoon in court (long story). But afterwards we had a delicious al fresco dinner at the Tower restaurant, the place we usually go when I'm in town.

On Friday I rented a car just up the street from my hosts' house, and drove to Novato to see a couple Mike and I met in the Caribbean this winter. They're in an RV park there for three weeks. Then on up the road a few miles to Petaluma to spend the weekend with my son and his family. On Saturday, another Caribbean acquaintance, who lives in Sebastopol, came to visit me there, and we shared our pictures from Bequia. And on Sunday we had a Mother's Day picnic. The photo is of the park where we walked, and then had a meal under a big spreading oak.

And on Monday morning I drove back to Sacramento and had brunch with yet another old friend, before heading back to the airport and home. That adds up to visits with six parties in five days. Might be a record for me. And as I describe it, I can see that it might sound frenetic. Funny thing is, if I'm on my own it's really quite relaxing. I just do the next thing and the next thing. I've finally learned not to make a trip like this with a traveling companion. I used to try. Boy was that stupid! Why in the world would anyone want to be dragged along when I'm in this mode? 

Big weekend in Fairhaven

It's Dirty Dan Days this weekend, honoring the founder of the town of Fairhaven, Dan Harris. He used to row back and forth to Victoria on Vancouver Island in the 1860s and 70s--I guess he was a smuggler. He platted Fairhaven in 1883. So the merchants and civic-minded people in this community throw a festival every year, mostly on the Village Green. Here's a sculpture of Dan overlooking the Green on a quiet day.

We're in luck this weekend because yesterday didn't rain and today looks like a blue sky day. This is the Northwest, after all, and the weather here is no respecter of festivals. There's a certain amount of embracing the overcast and drizzle -- we might as well. The sun began to peek through clouds in the early afternoon and one of the guys in the band on the stage referred to it as the Devil Star. 

Yesterday there were some silly contests (salmon toss, cupcake eating), and some fun activities for kids, and some food booths. We arrived too late for a serving from the huge pan of paella, but managed to snag the last of the seafood gumbo, and some roasted corn. Today is the clam chowder cook-off, and we'll have 19 restaurants competing for the best. I don't know if I can sample 19 chowders in one frenetic hour. It probably would be better not to.

The Winter Escape, part 1

This was the year we extended our winter time away from the cold to three full months--which feels a little bit like snowbirding. I guess it is. It's also the first time we've tried living in one spot, except for the coming and going, instead of island hopping. We stayed in a rented apartment on Bequia, with a bit of time before and after on St. Vincent, and a day on Grenada before flying home. We took maybe 800 pictures, so I'll share some here, in installments.

St. Vincent doesn't have an international airport (although one is under construction) so we've used Barbados, Grenada or St. Lucia to get as close as possible, and then taken local flights.  We arrived on St. Vincent on December 15, on a LIAT flight from Barbados. Our two smallish checked bags didn't. We weren't surprised. 

LIAT has some fairly stringent baggage limits, because their Dash-80 planes are small. But it was 10 days before Christmas, and people were coming home for the holidays from their far-flung, employment-imposed exiles, with overweight and extra bags and taped up cardboard boxes. I imagined Christmas presents, as well as things you can't easily get on St. Vincent. I suppose the bags left over from previous flights got on first. Reminder to self: next time pack a change of clothes in the carry-on. I always forget that, being an optimist.

We spent a night at the Cobblestone Inn, which is a few blocks from the ferry terminal, before catching the ferry to Bequia the next day. We managed to be there for First Morning, which is the first of St. Vincent's Nine Mornings celebration leading up to Christmas. And, we were just across the street from the festivities, so we didn't need a wake-up call. The huge speakers delivered the 4 am kick-off Invocation straight to our room. (You can see the size of the speakers stacked on the sidewalk on either side of the stage in the third picture.)  We watched some of the activity from the street, and some from the roof of the Cobblestone with our morning coffee. 

Every morning from December 16-24 the show starts at 4 am sharp. It's a combination of performances from musical groups, singers and costumed dance troupes, plus contests with people recruited by the MC on the spot from the audience. A group of eight-year old boys had a barking contest. Small girls belted out their favorite Christmas carols, a cappella, without a hint of shyness. Some young men vied for the attention of a beautiful girl by serenading her with a song, mostly made up on the spot and consistently awful. Then the crowd voted by applause for the winner. 

After that it was a leisurely morning, and staying in touch with airline baggage by phone. The bags found their way shortly after noon, and we managed to catch the 4:30 pm ferry to Bequia. 

Couch Surfing

This is a promising idea. While we were on Bequia we met a couple who are couch surfers  and so we've joined up and put up a profile. I still have to sort out the study so that there isn't junk on the futon, and then we can post that we have a couch available and see what happens. Although I can't imagine who would want to come here this very moment. Drizzling cold rain. I'll post more about this later, but I wanted to mention it. I have the idea that couch surfing could be combined with a US rail pass, and I've already been in touch with a lovely woman from New Iberia, Louisiana. That's a town on Amtrak's Sunset Limited schedule. 

Did I mention? Couch surfing is free. Check it out.

Avoiding airports as long as possible

I'm excited by the possibility that by next winter we may be able to travel all the way from Bellingham to Seatac airport south of Seattle, on the ground, so to speak. And not on the Interstate trapped in a motor coach either. 

There's a light rail connection due to be completed to the airport from downtown Seattle, hopefully by the end of the year. I think this means we will be able walk down the street with our bags to the Amtrak station here in Bellingham and ride the train to Seattle, where we will transfer to the Sounder light rail line to the airport. (We're lucky enough to live in walking distance of the train.)

It gets complicated of course. It would require traveling light enough, for one thing, though we usually do that anyway. But the train doesn't get to downtown Seattle until 10:00 a.m. or so,  meaning scheduling a flight out of Seatac late enough in the day for the connection to work. 

The point, though, is not getting sucked up into that airport maelstrom, that hurry-up-and-wait mental state, those interminable announcements, until we have to. It's about starting the trip slow, relaxed, uncrowded. If I could take the train all the way to Grenada or St. Vincent and the Grenadines, I would. I've toyed with the idea of taking the train from Seattle to Miami, Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, or some other gateway to the Caribbean, and flying from there. 

I like to play with these possibilities. I get on the Internet and try to match up schedules to see what's possible. Sometimes it turns out to be pretty impractical. But we did a mini-version last week, when we arrived in Seattle after 21 hours in airports and airplanes, and too late to fly the rest of the way home to Bellingham that night. We took a taxi to a hotel for the night, spent the next day catching up with friends who live in Seattle, and took the train home in the evening. Instead of feeling like my brain was boiled, I was totally relaxed when we unlocked the door after three months away. 

I guess I'm advocating slow travel. It makes you feel like a human.

Back from Bequia

It's been four days since we hauled our suitcases up the hill from the train station on the last leg of our journey home, and re-entered life in the (currently) cold zone of Bellingham, Washington. Which is where we live, and more about this wonderful place later. 

However, we do run away when winter comes, and are just returning from a three-month stay on the island of Bequia. Bequia is the largest Grenadine island (five square miles) in the Caribbean nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. That would be at about 13 degrees north of the Equator. A very desirable latitude this time of year. 

I'll be sharing travel and visitor information gleaned from this trip and others on this blog, link up to some photos, and also share local information for people headed for the Northwest.