Indeed Spring arrived mid-day Saturday. It froze Friday night. I know this because I encountered ice in all the puddles on my walk out to the barn on Saturday morning to tend to BioDiesel production. The forecast called for sun and temps in the high 50s F. By Monday we could see temps in the low 60sF. (low teens to mid/high teens for you Celsius thinkers.)
Saturday evening I fixed one of the Jaguar’s minor ailments and went to the BK Cruise-in. While there I made plans via telephone to do a Sunday drive with Greg Bilyeau from Bellingham. We agreed to meet in north Skagit County and go to La Conner (“B” on the map)for lunch. We met at Edison Station on Chuckanut Drive at the north side of the valley. (“A” on the map:)
Being the first day of good weather in a long time the bikers were out, both motorized and non-motorized. I stopped where Greg was waiting for me and we chatted for a bit, with a show-&-tell about my recent thermoswitch repair. Our presence caused quite a few people to stop and check out our cars, including several bikers and two guys in a modern Jaguar XK8, who were on a gimmick rally out of Bellingham.
Greg and I saddled up and went south (with a stop for photos at Padilla Bay) to La Conner, only to find it packed with tourists. No tulips yet, but the warm weather brought them all out and up from Seattle for the day. We bailed, with Greg’s backup to head towards Fidalgo & Whidbey Islands for some lunch somewhere.
The photo was taken as we left La Conner heading for SR 20 to take us to Deception Pass. This is typical lower Skagit Valley farmland, which in a week or two will be awash in tulips. Of course next fall it be awash in the Skagit River, but I digress. In the background you can see the top of the Cascade volcano Mt. Baker. The Primrose yellow S3 OTS in the foreground is Greg’s 1974 E-type.
We crossed onto Fidalgo Island, then south to Whidbey over the Deception Pass Bridge. A ways past it Greg pulled over and suggested we go to Coupeville on Penn Cove (home to those tasty Penn Cove Mussels!) for lunch. We weaved down Whidbey to Coupeville, found parking and walked to a tavern, whose service was the slowest on planet earth. Eventually we had lunch, Greg a sandwich, and me some clams.
Afterwards, we hopped in the Jags and went home, splitting up on Fidalgo, with me going south through the Swinomish Reservation to La Conner, then through Conway, and Lake McMurray, and SR9 to Arlington.
You can see all my photos from the Sunday Drive here.
so can you take photos backwards quite easily while driving then Chuck? or was it like a reality Tv show ‘I was all alone with the cameraman…’
Jerome
heh… I flip the camera upside down, hold it against my head to steady it, and operate the shutter with my thumb. Doesn’t require any distraction from the act of driving even.
I knew there would be a Goolsbee technique involved…
so the thermostat fix worked on the drive then?
Jerome
Thermoswitch worked like a charm!