TIME TO GO TO SEABECK, WASHINGTON

We left home 15 minutes ahead of schedule and went to MacDonald s for breakfast. We got through the border line up instantly, no cars in front of us. So now we are running half an hour ahead of schedule.... that's when it all started to fall apart. It was raining so darn hard and even though it was a Tuesday morning the highway was busy. Marvin kept thinking he was smarter than the GPS,,, at one point he turns off at a ferry sign and I say, no ,no , no we don't want to go to Whidby  Island,, ok I might not have been saying that,, I might have been using my outside voice lol but the result was we were sitting at the side of the road with cars whizzing by us and raining pounding down, looking at a map. Fortunately for Marvin at least the GPS does not say recalculating it just carries on and gets back on track. We got lost , oh i forget how many times after that but I know we stopped for directions twice. The GPS finally started coming up with Fatal error and crashing constantly, fortunately it was the only thing that crashed.

We have a ferry to catch and once we found the ferry dock we were able to board quickly .

Can you see the other ferry?

Not exactly a scenic trip, those are not buildings you see, its a reflection from what was behind me.

We got off the ferry and promtly got lost again but this was because GPS was having its fatal attacks.  We stopped in at Applebees for lunch then hit the road again. We pretty much did not know where we were going but we remembered that part of  Norma's family land had been turned into a state park so we followed the state park signs until we finally  stumbled upon their place. but the good news was the sun was out.

This the few from Norma's family home over looking  the a  bay, part of the Hood Canal

Pat wrote a book about  her early 50 years up in Alaska and here she is signing the book that she has given us. I was so pleased to receive it.

 These photos are taken from the families beach.

We visited for awhile and then headed to our over night destination The Wilcox Inn. When they heard about all our navigation issues they decided to have us follow them there.  Are your ready  - we all got lost. Well maybe not exactly lost but we did manage to get there :)

This is the longest driveway I have ever been on. It was amazing the road wound around  for ever through very dense forest. It was very pretty.



This is the entrance to the Inn. Brian and Norma had stayed here before and if we did not know that we would be wondering what we were if for, its so remote.
We found the Inn and were met by the owners Cecilia and Philip. Philip showed us around the lovely mansion that had once belonged to Colonel Wilcox. It was built in the early 1930's.

This is the colonel room it was lovely with a nice view of gardens and ocean. It must be amazing here in the summer when everything is in bloom

 Brian and Norma hosted our dinner at the Inn. Cecilia is the chef and served a nice chicken dinner.

I forgot to mention that prior to dinner they had wine and cheese set up for us in the library, fire place is lit for us everywhere we turn up. Then when the others arrived they were brought up to the library and promptly at 6:00 Philip came and told us dinner was served.  After dinner we sat in another area, in front of another fireplace and finished off our wine.

When we came down for breakfast we were informed we could wait or have breakfast as soon as we wanted. We said: what ever works for you", not used to this posh treatment lol. Breakfast was a special blend of frothy juice, fancy toasts, cinnamon rolls and an omelet. Oh yea a nice selection of fruits.  After breakfast Philip spent some time telling us about the area and Cecilia gave me her salad dressing recipe that  had commented on the night before and we visited them for about an hour.

This is the bathroom that lady guests of the mansion would use, I was so surprised when I saw it.

We wandered around their property, the sun was coming out and it was beautiful. If you want to see larger view I think you can click on the photo

Look at all the oysters, we could have collected and shucked them if we had been so inclined,, NOT lol

We are sad to leave it was quite an incredible experience 

If you would like to learn more about the Wilcox Inn click here

 We returned to Pat's then we went for a walk around the State Park, as I said earlier this property  used to belong to Norma's family. We saw the house Norma grew up in until she was 10. Not sure why I don't have a photo of it.

We then went to Barbie's Cafe and had awesome burgers, sorry Norma, I know your eyes are shut but its the only photo I had, I did not want to disturb the other customers too much

 From that window you can see Pat's house

Off we go again, this is the floating bridge crossing the Hood Canal

We booked into the Econo Lodge in Squim, not what we have been accustomed too  lol,, it was a pretty nice place actually and only cost 66 bucks. We didn't even get lost going there and the GPS behaved itself.

We were looking for some seafood for dinner,, the GPS decided to misbehave,, it would say turn right , we turned right, as soon as we did that, it said make a U- turn, well it had put us on the free way,, so we could not just do that, suddenly it was happy that we were going the wrong way and took us closer to the place although at last minute had us turn the wrong way. (We are getting smarter  and refused) as did we when it told us to drive into the field of cows and the ocean.  After driving us all over the place we took over and found an Italian place. We ordered two appys, one was clams, I had one it was gritty, so I ate a couple of chicken wings.

Breakfast was served buffet style in the lobby and we brought it up to our room.

We  went to Port Townsend and wondered around before we caught the ferry . We will come back sometime when we go camping in La Conner

Here we are eating yet again but this time along the water in La Conner. Fortunately we knew how to get here because the GPS had it all wrong. Just for fun we followed its directions and saw areas of La Conner we had never seen before and considered how many years we have camped in the area that is amazing.

After lunch we headed home, the GPS  was always going Fatal error and crashing. First job get a hold of customer support.

We had a really nice trip and feel like we were gone alot longer that 2 nights. The weather was great after we reached our destination.

It was great to see Brian and Norma and have some nice visits with Pat. She is a fun lady, quick to smile and laugh.

Then we woke up and back to reality