whidbey island

A week ago, I was basking in the temperature, wet glow of the Pacific Northwest. My friend Krista, whom I've known since 1993, when I was a publisher's rep for St. Martin's Press (now a part of the very large Macmillan USA), invited me to visit her on Whidbey Island, in the Puget Sound, about 30 miles northwest of Seattle. I jumped at the opportunity to see my friend (it had been three years since I'd last seen her) as well as to experience a climate different from my own, which is currently very snowy and very cold.

Krista met me at the airport, and we headed for the Mukilteo-Clinton ferry. Krista lives in Langley, which is a charming small town on the water. In many ways, Langley reminded me of Stillwater, MN, and Stockholm, WI, those charming towns that derive their livelihood from the quiet tourism of antiques stores, indie retail shops (clothing, wine, kitchen wares, books, and so on), coffee houses, and at least one solid high-end restaurant. 

Most of my time there was spent reading (Mary Roach's delightful Packing for Mars), listening to music (Budos Band III and Afrocubism), chatting, but also touring the island. We took a lot of long walks with Krista's spectacular cairn terrier, Orzo, and, in this manner, I got to see a lot of the island. Tip to tip, in fact.

Here, Orzo explores a monstrous piece of driftwood--an entire trunk, in fact--that appeared to be holding up the clay hill.

 Here are some of the highlights in photos:

Penn Cove mussels that, most likely, had been alive that morning.

Cool, enormous tree trunk.

Moss

Lichen, which, as you can see, is quite different from moss.

Deception Pass at the northernmost tip of Whidbey. Stunning contrast of sky, water, trees, mountains.