It’s true when you read the quote that says you will never be completely at home again once you’ve lived in more than one place. I have pieces of myself in so many places, really any place I’ve lived or stayed for any length of time and now Enderby is added to the growing list. It changes you to move to a new place, to get out of your comfort zone, to invite yourself to someone’s house and strike up a friendship. It’s telling the people that you are here now, and would you like to be friends, and is your life too busy to add someone new? Then when they love and accept you and you make memories together, those people are never just someone you knew again. They are part of your whole big story now. And it’s amazing.

We left on Saturday morning and with a few hours of cruising we got to my favorite thrift stores in Abbotsford. And of course we had a coffee stop at Old Hand Coffee before we drove to our campground for the night. After a spaghetti supper, Lance&Tasha and co. and Brookie stopped by for a coffee and cookies while we prolonged the goodbyes. Lovely time with them and I was so sad to see them go.

Sunday morning we met Jared&Shanni for a quick breaky which was so fun. We’d never met them before and we love spur-of-the-moment plans. We had no trouble crossing the border, except we had to give away our 2 dozen eggs because of Avian flu. Boo. We drove to Coupeville and waited for a couple hours for a ferry so we had lunch while we waited: a delicious charcuterie board thanks to Tasha, Nicole, and Mandy. Last time we were on a ferry was from Dover,England, to Calais,France, last year on our Europe trip. Actually, a year ago today we left for that trip! This ferry ride was half an hour long and we did see dolphins which was cool. We stopped at Ground to Perfection for a coffee when we got off the ferry in Port Townsend, WA. I forgot to put our cast iron pot in its safe spot after we got off the ferry so after we were nice and relaxed we happened to cruise around a curve and the cast iron went flying from its spot and broke the pepper grinder so we will be finding those for awhile I think. It scared us all so we were NOT as relaxed the rest of the way. We got to our dear Avril&Robs darling house in time for a pork taco supper and then we hurried to attend evening church at the Sequim congregation with them. I saw people I hadn’t seen for a long time and it made me happy to reconnect, if only for five minutes and also the people there are so nice and I can see why they live there. After we left Robs, we drove another 45 minutes down the road where we stopped for night near Lake Crescent.

This morning we had granola and yogurt and coffee before we puttered back onto the 101 heading south. We spent most of the day driving in and out if Olympic National Park, surrounded by old growth forests of pine and ferns. We started catching glimpses of the ocean later and stopped for a walk on the beach at noon. Low tide with lots of rocks and sand dollars to see and we continued on our way until we reached Aberdeen, WA, which I was wholly unimpressed with except for a shady thrift store we stopped at where I found a painting and a wee pottery mug on half-off day so it was $1.89 total. Yay. We also lunched at a place called Breakwater Seafoods where we had the best crispy, non-greasy fish and chips I’ve ever eaten. And also clam chowder. We drove along the ocean a large part of the afternoon and I just took deep breaths of that yum salt air and relaxed with a crossword while Morgan drove and Mom slept. Tonight we are staying by Long Beach, WA, quite close to the Oregon line. There is a supposedly a bear terrorizing the place we’re staying so I’m hoping for an interesting evening. We wanted seafood fettuccine but we can’t find good seafood at this exact spot so we’re doing chicken instead. Cheers!