Anacortes, Here We Come!

Right now I am sitting here, writing in my pajamas, drinking coffee, anxious to share our adventures in Anacortes, the GREAT, the good, the beautiful, the scary, and very sad, and well, if that’s not enough the WILD, WILD, WEATHER to boot!  Let’s get started.

Here are pictures of the back of my suburban, crammed with fabric!  I took this while waiting for the ferry.  And here is Laura ahead of me (notice the “O” – she is an Oregon Duck fan for sure!), her car not quite as crammed as mine.  I admit to owning a gas guzzling suburban.  Now I know it’s an absolutely lousy car when it comes to all things environmental.  But since we’ve owned it for 17 years now and it has a measly 55,000 miles, you can tell we only drive it for the storage space.  Or boat towing. 

We started the trip at the gas station, of course!  On the way there, I am thinking “which side is that darn gas tank on?”  I peak out the side view mirror.  Now since the thing stretches from here to Kansas; I don’t see anything.  The station is packed so I circle around and pull in with the pumps facing the passenger side,   Laura pulls aside to wait – she has a normal car and doesn’t need any gas!  I get out and low and behold – I have it wrong.  So I get in and try to turn this monster around in crowded conditions.  Fortunately, there is one space left and I jockey around fifty six times and pull in.  The pump is out of order!  Okay, the guy in front of me with a pick up is heading back to his car from the cashier – did I mention we are trying to catch a ferry here?  Well, thinking he’s done, I think I’ll just inch forward. 

Nope; he’s pre-paid and is going to fill up!  So I back up, go around all of the very busy pumps and find a space – yes, it’s the one I started at but I am going the other way!  Have you ever heard the phrase going full circle?  That’s me at the gas station!  So I fill her up and press “yes”, I definitely want a receipt.  And, you guessed it – no receipt comes out!  I think we spent about a half hour at those darn pumps.  Not a good start!

The rest of the trip there is uneventful, except that we saw one farm with tulips planted just outside of Anacortes and oh my gosh – it truly looks as though someone took their brightest felt markers and colored in the space.  The colors are amazing!  From pastel pink, to bright purple, yellow and red, the view was absolutely stunning!  It was hard to keep my eyes on the road!  Wish I could have taken a picture!

We get to the middle school and set up shop.  Here are a few pictures – we don’t have everything laid out yet but by the end of the day we are feeling pretty good here.  And meeting those around us let’s us know pretty quickly that we are surrounded by terrific vendors.  That is the perk of this life of fabric – the friends you meet and keep!  We are pleased as punch!

We left and went to dinner in a place called Adrift.  Delicious food, surrounded by books (ahhh, that makes my heart sing always) and we both even splurge on dessert.  I had a single scoop chocolate sundae with candied pecans and some kind of fancy Russian chocolate that haunts my dreams it was so good!  Laura has a homemade peanut butter cookie.

We had heard it was supposed to storm the next day and the husbands were going to join us by boat!  That made us both a titch nervous. And that night there was an explosion that woke up Laura but not me.  That is the sad news!  One of the refineries had a terrible accident and there were lives lost.  We were very sad about the news and tried to keep abreast of that while we were there.  Our hearts go out to the families.  Terrible.

Anyway, the wind was howling and the rain was pelting and there was even some snow near where Jon and Dave were trying to put in the boat so in the end, they decided it wasn’t worth the trouble.  We were so glad they didn’t leave by boat.  Even the little Port Townsend ferry they rode was a wild ride! 

So we started our show a little shaky but the good people of the Fidalgo Island Quilter’s Guild and the wonderful quilters that kept their hats on and ducked in the door made for a wonderful time!  What fun we had!  The day zipped by and we went to dinner at a local pub with the guys.  I snapped a picture of the two of them while we were waiting for a table.  I am sure they were discussing the boating adventures of the day!

Here is Laura working with a customer. 

Below are the beautiful tulips we purchased to honor the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival of which the show was a part of.

Saturday flew by too!  It was a great show!  The floor mats continue to be such a big hit and we sold kits and patterns galore and lots of fabric, ric rak, buttons and more!  Just before we broke down the booth we took some more pictures.  Laura and I normally shy away from the camera but here we are.   It sure took a lot longer to put up the booth than break it down, especially with extra help!  Love those husbands!  We were out of there just before 6:00 pm and home about 9:30 pm.

Comments

• so that's Laura...nice to see her in a photo...I'm sure she loves being included!! Need to see more of her, but not just her back-side helping a customer...nice smile! Happy Spring! I also love hearing the birds in the morning and also the Mariners' games in the evening! Go M's!!!
  by sally on 13 April 2010 at 6:08 p.m.

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