It’s been an awfully busy few weeks. We took my father to the San Juan Islands on Katherine Jane. He always wants to ride the ferries when he’s here. Like, every single day. Again. And then the next day. It’s been that way for 17 years, so Brock and I figured there couldn’t be anything better than a private yacht of his own for days and days.

The theory seemed to have merit.

We got Miss Jo-Jo up at 3:00 am for the Orionid meteor showers. Well, actually, Brock got me up first, because it was crystal clear and calm and perfect outside. And then I had to explain to him about the proper way to wake people up in the middle of the night, which was not the way he did it at first (think: gentle). Dad was already up, of course. So I went to include the kids. SB was definitely uninterested in some freakin’ star show, but NJ got up, somewhat begrudgingly. I tried all the gentle, encouraging techniques for getting her dressed warmly and up on deck.

We stepped outside and *poof* half the sky was covered in clouds and the visibility continued to deteriorate fast. NJ managed to get in some good sarcastic jibes about people who drag other people out of bed to look at cloudy nights, but even she managed to catch a glimpse of 5+ shooting stars. And we had hot cider. So it wasn’t a total loss from her perspective.

We found Dad his own private island and left him on it for several hours when the closeness started to get to him (he lives on 16 acres next to a 4870 acre state park with nobody in it except him and my step-mom ~ his hermit instincts are sharply honed). Blind Island State Park was pretty much perfect for him. Three acres, all to himself.

We joined him eventually, bringing freshly baked scones with strawberry jam.

The dryer requires us to run the generator, so we decided to try an alternative and save some fuel. Heck, we were running the main engines anyway. Might as well use the heat for something good! It worked quite well & the clothes didn’t even smell too badly of diesel. We volunteered Dad’s clothes for the experiment. Thanks, Dad!

Onward to Jones Island, one of our very favorites. We climbed to the top of the island…

and climbed down to the base through the tide pools. It was a Forced Death March for Nity after she found the most perfect, best beach in the whole world and then we made her leave it. Sorry, Nit!

Sunrise as we left the islands was reportedly beautiful. I was, of course, asleep.

We came home a day early because of incoming stormy weather – no sense bucking 30-40 mph winds all the way up Admiralty Inlet. Within 15 minutes of arriving at the dock, we hit the road again, off to stay at Ocean Shores to watch the storm. It was blowing like crazy.

Finished it off with a drive the next day to Lake Quinault. We circled the lake & encountered a herd of 30 or so elk. And encountered some really big trees. My dad got to sit on a wet log in the woods.

So I think overall it was a very good visit.