On Sunday we were going to go on a hiking trip with some friends, but Dan got off work super late, so we decided to sleep in and go on our own adventure. We ended up taking the ferry up to Vashon Island and exploring a little bit. For all the ferries around the Puget Sound, Dan & I have never been on one together. The ferry from Tacoma to Vashon doesn't take very long, but still, I really love riding ferries. They're kind of a tiny bit magical. In my head I think it'd be fun to live somewhere and have to ferry commute to work. Of course, that'd probably be pretty spendy, but how peaceful to spend that time before work sailing across the puget sound, instead of stuck in traffic on I-5?
Before we hopped on the ferry we grabbed lunch from the Antique Sandwich Co. up in Ruston. I've driven past it many times and had heard good things about them, but neither of us had ever been there. Mmm, it was so good. A great sandwich is hard to beat. I had a Turkey Avocado sandwich on Rye. Because a sandwich without avocado is scarcely a sandwich at all.
We visited two beaches and ended up finding a lighthouse! I had never thought much about it before, but I bet there are a bunch of lighthouses scattered around the Puget Sound. We haven't done a ton of local exploring, but I'd like to start seeing the local sites. I'd love to take a trip around the Olympic Peninsula. I went on a little RV trip around the Olympic Peninsula with my family back in 2009 and thought it was incredibly gorgeous. This area is full of such great places to explore. I like that after leaving Alaska, I ended up in a place that is still so outdoorsy and beautiful.
I'd visited Vashon Island many many years ago as a kid with my parents, but I remember nothing of it. It's really quite lovely. It's kind of cool to hop on the ferry and suddenly be in a very rural setting. My new mission is to get my parents to move to Vashon so a) they will be close to us, and b) we'll have an excuse to get over to Vashon. Looking up from the beach at the houses perched up in the trees reminded me of being a kid visiting my grandparents in Juneau. Their house was right on the beach, nestled up amongst huge trees. I remember walking down from their house to the beach, making arrowheads from the shale rock fragments, being fascinated with the tide pools, and looking at the petroglyphs left on rocks by natives ages ago.
