While on the flight back home from St. Thomas, I had a revelation while sitting next to my mom on the plane: there are still a ton of things in the Seattle/Tacoma area that I have never done! So, a “bucket list” of things to do while I live in the Pacific Northwest was born. Included on the list are things like: go to the Tacoma Glass Museum (I know, can you believe I’ve never done that??), hike and/or camp on Mt. Rainier and visit Vashon Island.
Tom and I knocked out the last one this past weekend. We took a trip to Vashon! It was an amazing day and I kind of wish we would have had more than one day there to explore it J
First, we obviously had to take the ferry from Point Defiance to Vashon. All I could think was how different this ferry experience was compared to the ferry I took from St. Thomas to St. John while in the US Virgin Islands. This ferry was just as beautiful, but slightly more chilly :).
When we arrived on the island, I immediately felt the island lifestyle. I particularly thought this little restaurant was adorable –the old Hardware store where “Today’s special… so is tomorrow.” How cute?
Our next stop was to visit an icon of the island—the bike in the tree.
The story goes that a young kid was riding his bike in the woods and he leaned it up against the tree. He forgot it there, and when he came back, the tree had gobbled up the tree.
Then, as we learned from a kid who grew up on the island, the original bike eventually fell out of the tree but because the island had become known for it, the islanders decided to put a new bike into the tree. But no one is the wiser—well, except us I guess. :)
Our next stop was the Center Island Forest, a complex network of trails through the center of the island (go figure).
First, we walked through the Valley of the Firs. It might not look like much in 2D but let me tell you that in real life it was truly magical.
While on the trail, we came across all sorts of wonders. Next, there was the teepee that someone left for us to find.
Next we came across several creatures (well, Tom did…I was oblivious to their existence until he pointed them out).
This salamander was particularly interesting. He played dead like no creature I’ve ever seen before. We stood around him and watched, and we actually had a discussion about whether or not we thought he was dead or alive, and also if maybe he was a fake plastic one!
After the woods, we went back to the "city". This was one of two stoplights on the island.
After exerting ourselves on the trails, we stopped into Bob’s Bakery for a snack! They had DELICIOUS cinnamon rolls:
Apparently the guy who owns it now is named Paul, but the islanders won’t let him re-name it (they took a vote).
This message was on the creative kids play corner...not sure what we were supposed to make of that.
As we walked through the town, we kept seeing these signs with phone numbers with one digit followed by four more. This is because there are only two prefixes on the island, 567 and 463. So, the phone numbers will only list 7-#### or 3-####.
Our next stop was Maury-Island; which is technically part of Vashon Island. We stopped by the lighthouse (I can’t remember the name). It was beautiful.
Then, off the shoreline we had a very unique experience—we had an Orca sighting! You probably can’t see them in this photo, but off to the right of the midline of the photo are multiple shoots of water from the blow holes of them!
We saw some of the first signs of spring like these daffodils among the dead weeds.
Oh, and more sings of spring :) Daisies!
And, we caught the site of another small creature (well, again, Tom did, not me).
Next we ventured to the other side of Maury to a small shoreline town called Dockton. We went through an established historic trail, with signs along a “city trail” to fill us in on the many different historic sites on the island.
Tom of course had to point out the irony of the statement on the bottom left of this sign (not part of the Dockton trail of course): "NOTE: if you require this information in braille, audio cassette, or large print, please call..."
This adorable fake house was set up at the location of the old crabbing sites. I thought it was so picture perfect.
While not part of the “trail”, we passed by some houses with their backyards full of goats—how cute are they?
We also passed by the old school house – check out this picture of the entire 1st-8th grade classes! Tom and I had a wonderful time looking at the kids’ faces and imagining where they are today.
We called it a day after the trail and headed back home with a beautiful view of Mt. Rainier (perhaps my next stop on completing the Pacific Northwest Bucket List).
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