Debbie and Joe's November 26

Nathan, George and I headed out at 7:30 am to go to Debbie and Joe's.   There were a lot of "firsts" for my car.  First long drive, first time leaving the state, and the first time the low fuel light had come on. We only put in 5 gallons of gas.  We did not bring our car charger with us so it will be entirely gas usage. 

Entering Washington

There was almost no traffic.  I guess Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend is a good time to drive somewhere. 

Passing through Seattle

Giant tree stump at a rest stop

We got to Debbie an Joe's about 11:45 am.  Not bad. 

Debbie's new car (the blue Porsche on the left) .  She just got it yesterday..  It is a 2020 previously owned vehicle. But it looks new. It is a Macan.  We looked up the meaning.  It is derived from the Indonesian word for tiger. 

Joe's work station

Joe is tell George about all his work on the cars.

We had a nice lunch of soup and salad.  Then we did the neighborhood walk.

The lake

Their house has a new paint job.  It looks great.

The cars

The view

One of Joe's "pets".

Debbie with Phil

Belle and Phil

Phil sat on my lap - briefly... long enough for a photo op.

Phil is friendly with Nathan

We went to the Oyster Bar in Bow for dinner.  It was a very classy place.

Our wine choice

I tried to get a picture of the bay.  The lights in the left are of Anacortes. 

Joe liked the glass that his ale came in.

Joe with his Belgium ale

yummy beet salad.

Intermezzo passion fruit sorbet and cava to cleanse the palate.

My fabulous steak.  Debbie had the halibut, Joe the pheasant, Nathan the crab cakes and butternut squash soup, and George had the vegetarian risotto gnocchi.  

We each got a cute little cheese souffle. 

Debbie got the black truffle cake for dessert.  We help her eat it.

No cell phones or children under 9.  I kept worrying that I would get in trouble for using my cell phone to take pictures. 

Nathan, George, and Phil.

We chatted the evening away.

Tuesday: Glendale to Portland

 

Cool light fixture in the hotel.

California Live Oak.  

We found these seeds everywhere and did not know what they were.  I hope that I am correct. 

A mural on the church wall across the street from the hotel.

We had breakfast at the hotel and had plenty of time to get packed up.  We left at 9 am to go to the airport.  We had quite the hassle returning the rental car.  The signage was not very clear.  We got on the wrong floor for returning the car so we had to make the whole loop again.  They told us to stay left instead of right. That was what we did.  Argh, wrong again!  First, stay right then stay left.  The third time we got to the correct floor. Luckily we had allowed extra time.  We got to our gate with about 10 minutes to spare.  

It was cloudy and rainy in Glendale when we left. 

Sunny in Portland.  Though it definitely was chilly.  

We got on the MAX.  Nathan got off at the Goose Hollow stop right by his apartment and then we went to the Beaverton Transit Center where Joyce was waiting for us.  She gave us a ride home which was very nice.  

The cats were wondering who we were.  ;-)  We sure had a great time seeing Jamie, Pam, Sharon, Michael, Ella, and Nicole.

Monday at Channel Island

We went down to the breakfast area when it opened at 6:30 am.  It wasn't very crowded.  They also weren't actually ready to be opened, so we had to wait for some foods to be brought out.  We headed out around 7 am to get to the Ventura Harbor to get the boat for our Channel Island Tour.  We were supposed to be there by 8:15 am to check in.  Traffic was not too bad the direction we were going.  It was a very foggy morning and they were predicting rain.  

 

We boarded the Island Packer and left on time.  

The birds on the rocks were like gangs.  Each section of break water rocks had a different type of bird.

Seagulls

Pelicans

Cormorants 

It was a nice boat.  Jeanne, it was like our Apostle Island tour boat.

Wow!! Dolphins galore.  Apparently they love to swim along side of boats.  It was amazing.  They would even swim under the boat and then leap up beside the boat.  I think I took a thousand pictures.  Most of them I will have to delete because my reaction time was too slow between seeing and clicking.  But it sure was fun.  

The first stop on the Santa Cruz Island was Scorpion Bay where we left off a few people and then we went on to Prisoners' Harbor where they let us off.  By that time it was raining.  We stood around awhile in a small shed with others from the boat.  We had our lunch.  

Welcome crew

By then the rain stopped and we went for a walk.  It was mostly a road and not a trail, but it was uphill and it was muddy.

Muddy!!!

Spanish Moss

Some great views

Bush or Silver Lupins

We returned to the beach to wait for boarding time.

A lot of Eucalyptus trees

Barnacles on the dock poles

Our boat was waiting for us but we could not get on until the right time.

Waiting for the time to board.

We headed back to Scorpion Bay

We picked up the people waiting there.

We were a little late heading back because they had to wait for a few people to show up.

Oil Rig

This time we saw a few humpback whales (the captain said that we saw 7).  There is one in this picture.  I did not think that they were as much fun or impressive as the dolphins. 

As you can see, the dolphins are right beside the boat.

We also went through a ultra mega pod of dolphins.  It was the largest pod that they have seen in a while.  I took many more photos.  Because of the whales we had to go extra slow, but because we were going so slowly the dolphins were not as interested in us. 

It was very windy and chilly.  

The sun was setting as we were heading into port. That was fun

This picture was taken out the back window of the car as we were driving home. The black specks were dirty window spots.

I enjoyed the nice full moon during our 1 & 1/2 hour drive to Sharon and Michael's. Apparently last night was a total eclipse of the full moon and we missed it.  Not only was it at 2 am but our hotel windows face the courtyard so we could not have seen it without going outside somewhere.

We got to Sharon & Michael's an hour later than we had planned.  The kids were through with dinner and were taking baths.  We had our dinner.  Nathan and George had pizza and I had a chicken sandwich.  Pam had ordered take-out from Star Cafe.  We have enough leftovers for our flight home tomorrow.

Ella, Nicole and Jamie.  Jamie had to leave to go home to pack.  He was flying to DC in the early morning for a work thing.  Pam, Sharon, George, Nathan, and I played a game of 10, 9, 8 after the kids had gone to bed.  Then we headed back to the hotel.  We won't see them in the morning.