Anniversary II overnighter

We wanted to do a quick getaway for our anniversary this year, the first time entirely without Simon. Just a quasi-local driving trip, while Simon stayed with his cousins down the street. Diana researched B&B's in the area, and settled on the Country Cottages in Langley, on Whidbey Island. It's a little tourist town, which is not particularly busy this time of year, and fortunately they were good enough to let us book just one night.

Our real goals for the weekend were pretty modest: See a new place, relax in a hot tub, sleep in. Everything else would just be bonus. We generally scored on all of those accounts.

We dropped off Simon after his morning nap, and headed out in crappy weather. I-405 was closed for the weekend (they're tearing down a bridge), so we took I-5 through downtown Seattle. Huge mistake. It sucks trying to go north and south to begin with in this area, but it's intolerable when you close one of the two freeways. Throw in some accidents and a disabled truck, and it gets even worse. What a mess.

It took us about an hour and a half to get to the ferry, but at least the rain stopped once we got there. This was my first time using a ferry in Puget Sound. I give a +1 to the WSDOT for doing an efficient job with these. The sound is really quite lovely too. I was a little disappointed that I couldn't use my ORCA card for the passenger though. Microsoft gets everyone one of those, but I'm not sure what all it covers. I think all the busses and trains for sure, but I thought it covered ferries as well. In any case, the Prius got to float in almost-Pacific water for the first time since it arrived from Japan.

Once we arrived at the B&B, we dropped off our stuff and headed back up the road to the Whidbey Island Winery. We did some tasting, bought some bottles. Given my over-consumption at the work off-site, I wasn't that into the taste, but the smell of some of those was really good. They had this beautiful, fat, orange cat there too.

Later we walked around the little village, which is not particularly hopping given the off-season. Most places were closed, and none of the restaurants really jumped out at us. Or at least, didn't jump out at me. I'm too picky. But there was a pizza joint that smelled amazing, so we went there. It was super delicious. I'll refrain from repeating my rant about a lack of good pizza in this town.

Back at the room, we chilled out in the hot tub for awhile. It has been a long time! It was even longer for Diana, since the last few months in Cleveland, she was pregnant and couldn't use mine. There aren't many things that I miss about the old life, but the hot tub is a big one.

We did some serious relaxation, watched a movie... it was wonderful. We did miss Simon, of course, but it was nice to be "us" the way we were before we had him. I think we also felt like being "us" with Simon is better. Our challenge is trying to be both, but we manage.

One of the most vivid things about being out there was the sound of the insects. They were so much louder than anything I've heard since we moved. It's almost like we've traded the sounds of nature, like bugs and thunderstorms, for a more visual nature, mountains and the sound.

We had our first chance in a very long time to sleep in, together. That was nice. I almost forgot what it was like. Unfortunately, the breakfast they offered was not something I'd eat, and I'm a little surprised that they'd bring out a plate with bacon on it without asking if I wanted it. You can't spit without hitting a vegetarian out here, and I don't dig on swine.

Since the town was so inactive, there wasn't much reason for us to hang out, so we headed back. Again, an easy ferry ride. We took a similar alternate route to the one we took Friday coming back from Tulalip, to avoid the I-5 congestion. Simon was enjoying lunch with his cousins, and super happy. It was a very successful weekend overall. Hooray!