Road Trip!

 gmjambear and I took another road trip yesterday.  This time we drove to the north end of Whidbey Island and then south the length of the island with a few stops for pictures along the way. 

First stop was to pick up dinner of chicken tenders, red beans and rice at Popeye's drive-thru in the Cascade Mall in Burlington. Then we headed west on route 20 to Deception Pass and parked on the south end of the bridge. When we arrived, we sat in the car and ate our dinner early because we were both hungry. As we ate, I noticed our phones buzzing; when we went to check, it turned out they had switched to a signal from Rogers  to our west in Victoria, BC as it was stronger than the AT&T signal in the area. The view there was filtered by trees; I got out to take pictures anyway. I was going to go all the way down the stairs leading under the bridge, but there was a young couple canoodling at the foot of the stairs, so I took the side trail instead and returned to the troll position (under the bridge 😊) after they had left. A shirtless, hefty young boy and his mom struggled to reach the top of the trail. I stopped in for a pee before we left. Gary noticed two moms and 5 kids in a vehicle with Virginia plates. 

 

We drove to North Beach in the park proper. On the way we spotted a fawn by the side of the road. We stopped but he ducked into the brush. I got some more pictures from the beach and we spotted a tiny bird just finishing eating a large winged insect like a dragonfly. I overheard a mother on the trail overhead admonishing her child not to throw things into the water because there were people in the water below and she didn't want them to crack someone's head. Gary's phone kept switching between Rogers, Bell, and Telus; mine switched briefly to Telus, but mostly stayed on Rogers.

We left North Beach after deciding to watch the sunset from Fort Casey rather than West Beach. This made this the first trip in which we drove the length of the island. We detoured off Route 20 in Coupeville to avoid the Port Townsend ferry traffic. When we arrived at Fort Casey we parked in the lighthouse lot, where at least three rabbits were at play in the grass and three deer were grazing just beyond the lighthouse. Gary was not happy to see children bother and feed the deer. We got some good photos of the lighthouse and sunset, then stopped by the restroom on our way out (it looked like they were about to lock up for the night).

Next we headed further south to the Clinton ferry terminal. As we passed the Coupeville (formerly Keystone) terminal immediately after leaving the fort, Gary was pleased to see the little seafood restaurant we'd eaten at before was back open. We arrived in plenty of time to catch the 8:35 ferry. A cute young bear took our fare. Because of COVID-19, we were asked to stay in our car (parked inboard of the stairs so we couldn't see the  water), with the result that Gary didn't realize we were underway until we had almost reached the dock in Mukilteo. All in all, a pleasant excursion.