![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
more San Juan love
Sep. 27th, 2010 10:13 pmSaturday was beautifully clear and sunny; Sunday was beautifully misty and dramatic. Some stressful moments, but overall an excellent trip. Saturday night I broke into a hut, talked to loads of people, and even won a game of pool. Early Sunday I showed off the beautiful walk up the shore trail to another grad who works on my hall; we saw a convoy of kayakers as well as some nifty birds and lovely partially-hidden vistas.
Sunday I was persuaded to go see a strange mausoleum, expanding my San Juan knowledge base. When I told Wim about this he pointed out that mausoleums contain remains. Where were these corpses? In the chair-seat plinths? The first-year grads who came along were ostentatiously leaning on the headstone chair-backs trying to trigger the trap door that they were sure was present; I think I like these boys so far. The chair backs have names and dates but also such epithets as "32° Mason", "An Elk", and "Republican".
It was a bit of a struggle to find more things to do, so we poked around Roche Harbor a bit and then returned to the labs (glorious place I love now mostly empty yay!) and to downtown Friday Harbor. Lunch took ages as the Hungry Clam was very busy, and I was about done with humans by that time. Pretty much everyone was leaving on the 2:15 ferry, which I wasn't, so after lunch I got the town more or less free of people I knew for a while too. I went to the used bookstore (Ozark Trilogy 2 & 3), a new bookstore (bought zero, boggled at their YA selection as usual, fell in love with the Charles Vess illustrations for Gaiman's Instructions), the yarn store (fingering-weight hemp yarn on sale, the second volume of Bordhi's New Directions for Sock Knitters!!1!), and the native northwestern art gallery (bought zero, admired much, especially a wonderful Susan Point print, "Salish Path").
Damaging my faith in sea planes further, my scheduled 4:30 departure was canceled. Apparently it wasn't the fog on landing, though there was a bit, but the fog between Seattle and San Juan that was the problem. Thus I planned to take the ferry, which would have worked better if the ferry had come on time. Sheesh. It wound up being nearly two hours late due to a breakdown, but I had a book. When we finally got under way, I finished Jaran, wrote processy stuff until the Lopez Island stop, then went out and admired the puffy and skeined mist as we navigated through the islands at sunset -- completely worth standing out in the wind and damp chill. I caught a ride home with a professor's family including nerdy animal-loving daughter, which was a little awkward but mostly fun, and arrived home around 9.
Final macrofauna tally: 6 deer in cutely shaggy winter coats; 3 raccoons; 2 garter snakes; a harbor seal (only its head visible); a fox (black or gray, it was dark out); cute and interesting birds.
Sunday I was persuaded to go see a strange mausoleum, expanding my San Juan knowledge base. When I told Wim about this he pointed out that mausoleums contain remains. Where were these corpses? In the chair-seat plinths? The first-year grads who came along were ostentatiously leaning on the headstone chair-backs trying to trigger the trap door that they were sure was present; I think I like these boys so far. The chair backs have names and dates but also such epithets as "32° Mason", "An Elk", and "Republican".
It was a bit of a struggle to find more things to do, so we poked around Roche Harbor a bit and then returned to the labs (glorious place I love now mostly empty yay!) and to downtown Friday Harbor. Lunch took ages as the Hungry Clam was very busy, and I was about done with humans by that time. Pretty much everyone was leaving on the 2:15 ferry, which I wasn't, so after lunch I got the town more or less free of people I knew for a while too. I went to the used bookstore (Ozark Trilogy 2 & 3), a new bookstore (bought zero, boggled at their YA selection as usual, fell in love with the Charles Vess illustrations for Gaiman's Instructions), the yarn store (fingering-weight hemp yarn on sale, the second volume of Bordhi's New Directions for Sock Knitters!!1!), and the native northwestern art gallery (bought zero, admired much, especially a wonderful Susan Point print, "Salish Path").
Damaging my faith in sea planes further, my scheduled 4:30 departure was canceled. Apparently it wasn't the fog on landing, though there was a bit, but the fog between Seattle and San Juan that was the problem. Thus I planned to take the ferry, which would have worked better if the ferry had come on time. Sheesh. It wound up being nearly two hours late due to a breakdown, but I had a book. When we finally got under way, I finished Jaran, wrote processy stuff until the Lopez Island stop, then went out and admired the puffy and skeined mist as we navigated through the islands at sunset -- completely worth standing out in the wind and damp chill. I caught a ride home with a professor's family including nerdy animal-loving daughter, which was a little awkward but mostly fun, and arrived home around 9.
Final macrofauna tally: 6 deer in cutely shaggy winter coats; 3 raccoons; 2 garter snakes; a harbor seal (only its head visible); a fox (black or gray, it was dark out); cute and interesting birds.
