Our ferry didn’t stop at Friday Harbor yesterday

 But that didn’t stop us from asking a deck hand how he would have gotten all the cars pointed the right direction if they had made that intermediate stop.  He said if they can leave one of the side ramps open, they can have boarding cars drive around one side of the boat and come back the other side, pointed the same direction as everybody else.  If it’s a big truck, they can have it back on.  If it’s somebody big that can’t back up (like us), they’ve gone so far as to unload any vehicles that need to get off, take the boat back out, turn it around, re-dock it, and then load the additional vehicle. Our campsite at Andy and Christie’s.   The view would be even nicer if not for the Washington and British Columbia forest fire smoke. As a bonus tonight, Nephew Bill came by for dinner.Excellent to catch up with him. So we took a picture of too many people to cram into a selfie.The big guy on the right is Kyle, Christie’s oldest.  Cameron was off at a swim meet.  

Today’s puzzler

 We’re boarding the ferry from Victoria, BC to Anacortes, WA.  It makes a stop along the way at Friday Harbor.  Judy asked me to explain something.  She said “What if cars want to get off and on at Friday Harbor?” I said “No problem.  If any cars need to get off at Friday Harbor, they’ll just put them all in one row when they load them, so they can all get off when they need to.”   She said “Yeah. But.  What if any cars want to get on at the midway stopover?” “No problem, they can get on in the space where the other cars just left.” “Yeah, but they’ll all be facing the wrong direction on the boat!” Oh.  Yeah.  That could be a problem.  But the answer was going to be easy to find out.  All we had to do is wait until we arrived at Friday Harbor and watch what they did.  Then we got the horrible news.  This boat wasn’t stopping at Friday Harbor this trip.  We weren’t going to find out the answer to our question. So that’s it.  Today’s puzzler.  If the ferry makes multiple stops, how do they keep the cars they load and unload all facing the same direction?  In other news, Alex has been working on a new skill on high bar.  It’s a release move above the bar. https://www.facebook.com/lindsay.s.taylor.7/videos/vb.734450013/10159217642700014/?type=2&theater This is a link to Lindsay’s FaceBook page, so I don’t know if it will work for everyone.  We’ve left Victoria, and Canada altogether.  We’re parked in Edmonds, WA at Andy and Christie’s house. 2017 Summer Trip Map Got there in time for evening waterfront pictures.    

I don’t remember his name

 We were in high school.  He was one of the “in” kids.  I wasn’t.  One day, out of nowhere, he invited me over to his house after school.  He heard I had pigeons.  He wanted to show me his loft and talk birds.  I went. Nice neighborhood.  Nice house with a spacious pigeon loft built on an upstairs deck.  I was impressed.  He was enthusiastic about his birds.  It was all going so well.  Until.  He said “I’m so glad to have someone to talk to about pigeons that isn’t a dork.”  I don’t remember anything after that.  A dork.  A “dork” is exactly how I thought the kids he hung out with would describe me.  He hung out with friends during breaks and at lunch.  They talked and laughed.  I was socially awkward.  I had friends in our neighborhood, but at school I was more comfortable eating lunch alone, then going to the library to read. Sincere as he may have been, and happy to have someone to share his love of birds with, I was put-off beyond repair by his overture; his offhand remark; my teenage insecurity that he might be making fun of me.  We didn’t bond over pigeons.  In fact, I don’t recall ever speaking with him again after that day.  

Along the way

 A public piano at Cattle Point.   Victoria. Black Oystercatcher. Northwestern Crow. Harbor Seal. Water Taxis. River Otter. Orca.