Whidbey Island Visit

There was sky drama over the mountains and the edge of the Skagit Valley as we left to cross over the bridge to the north end of Whidbey Island.

DJan, my blog friend from Bellingham, had just recently posted about a Thursday hike in the Cornet Bay area of Deception Pass State Park on Whidbey Island. In all of the time Tom and I have spent on the island, we have never been there, so we decided now was the time.

There were no threatening clouds here at Cornet Bay!

DJan had mentioned that there were wonderful old growth trees here in this rain forest.  Big trees are my thing, so we set out to find some.

 Can you see me at the base of this tree?  Yep, that's a big one all right, and it had plenty of company.

 Growth of all kinds is lush here in the temperate rain forest. 

 We didn't do the nine miles up and down the hill like DJan and her fellow hikers.  After enjoying the company of the trees for a little while, we turned around and returned to the bay.

We did some more poking around and finally reached the cabin, dumped our overnight gear, and went to find some dinner.  As a matter of fact, we found some nearby, at Bayview.  We ate at Joe's (wood fired pizza - a new place and very good).

The sun was setting on Sunlight Beach and Deer Lagoon by the time we were ready for an after dinner walk.

 Look closely in the photo below to see the sky scrapers of Seattle and Mt Rainier in alpen glow.

 It's tulip time at the cabin too.  The garden looked great but we could see the millions of tiny weeds sprouting everywhere.  That would be our job for the morning.

It took us both about four hours and a lot of hard work, but now the yard is back to ship shape.

While the cabin is a jointly own family place, the garden is our project.

 By mid afternoon, with all the work done outside and inside, I roused myself for a short walk on the dike trail along the lagoon.

The clouds were beginning to gather for the predicted rain, which held off until later that night.

 After the winter browns, the dike trail is going green again.

 Scotch broom is ready to burst it's buds, and Oregon Grape is in full bloom.

 Looking back, you can see our cabin from the lagoon side, the brown one, second from the left.  The tide was out during the daylight hours, so no sky mirror this trip.

The light from the cloudy sky gave the colors in the garden a softer glow as we said goodbye and headed for home.