A helping hand...

I was spending the day with my Great Aunt taking her to the doctor and running some errands. Our last stop was Rite-Aid so I could run in and grab 2 things of ice cream for her. There was a man sitting on the curb out front who started talking to me as soon as I got out of the car. When I see someone like this, it depends on the situation, location and the person themselves if I decide to converse with someone who looks like they are going to ask for money. I couldn't understand him at first so I got closer and asked him what he said.

He was trying to hand me his Rite-Aid Wellness (discount) card and asked if I could buy him some headache medicine. I was kind of caught off guard by the question and stupidly, but politely, asked, "Why don't you just go in and get some yourself?" to which he replied, "Because I don't have any money.". DUH?!?! I think the fact that he had a discount card, wasn't asking for cash, and wasn't dressed like a homeless person (but possibly disabled), it kind of threw me off.

I told him I would give him a dollar, and he was very thankful. Once inside getting what I needed, I thought to myself, why didn't I just offer to buy him some? So I went and grabbed a 24ct bottle of Excedrin and added it to my cart. When I went to go back to my car, he wasn't around though. Oh well.

But then my Great Aunt, who had been waiting in the car, thought of something else she needed so I went back inside. The man was inside and approached me with an outstretched hand full of change when he saw me. I was very surprised, but just told him Thanks, but just to keep it. And I asked if he got some medicine like he was wanting, he said yes. I had already put the Excedrin in my trunk, or I would have handed it over. According to my Great Aunt, he had received a little money from some others after me, so must have gotten enough to buy some.

By the time I did my quick second shopping trip and got back in my car, the man was crossing the street in front of me after going to the gas station across the street. He had some packaged donuts/cookies/candy/something in his hand and again reached out toward my car as if to say, would you like some? I just shook my head No, smiled, and waved.

So it just made me think that sometimes there are people out there that just need a little help for whatever reason. He wasn't asking for a handout to buy drugs, he just had a really bad headache and needed some medicine. I guess the moral of the story is to not treat everyone asking for help as a second class citizen. Some of them legitimately just need a helping hand.

Another crazy dream

Last night I had another crazy and vivid dream. I was in my town visiting with some people, and when I went to leave, my car wouldn't start. So I called AAA for a tow truck. But within 10 mins or so, a helicopter landed on the street to pick my friend and I up instead. I found this rather odd. As we were flying over my town, I started noticing many buildings on fire and a ton of black smoke pluming into the air. I commented on this, but no one seemed phased.

My town has an old Naval Air Station at one end of town. It is used by some other businesses now, but still has a ton of open land. Once we landed over there, I looked back toward the city and it was more full of flames than ever. I yelled to everyone to gather what they could and head toward the water. There were some houses there that were abandoned and had no doors or windows, but we used them as shelter. I had my camera with me (as I always do in life) and a chain about 3' long with a snap hook on each end. I had the camera in one front pocket, then took the snap hook from one end of the chain and put it around a belt loop, then the chain filled up the rest of my other pocket.

We then heard a loud explosion from the city and a tsunami resulted from it. The waves were at least 30'-40' high and completely engulfed the houses we were in. I had handed the other end of the chain to my friend before this happened so we wouldn't get separated. So we swam out of a window and up to the surface. The water seemed to quickly subside. We knew we had to move on to a new location. But instead of just walking somewhere nearby, we seemed all of a sudden transported to a tropical locale. We were standing in a lush rain forest at the top of a very tall and beautiful waterfall. I remember taking some pictures, thinking if my camera survived this, then at least part of this journey would be documented.

But the explosions and tsunamis followed us where ever we went, so this was some sort of global event that was taking place. I never saw people attacking, or planes flying over, but I knew it was some sort of war situation. We found more houses to hide in, only to be forced out all over again by the waves. I remember thinking that my chain was a great resource to have and helped keep my friend and I together.

And like most of my dreams, I woke up before it ended. I actually tried to go back to sleep to see how things turned out, but didn't happen. It was very real and vivid though. Maybe that's what I get for watching 'The Colony' before bed.

Dream... Cheechoo and a work camp

I had 2 dreams last night at the completely opposite end of the spectrum from each other.

The first, I was apparently dating Cheechoo (don’t get jealous ladies). I don’t remember much of the dream except that we were at some amusement park for one part of our date. Then we ended up at some really high end restaurant, where the chef kept bringing us tastings of the food. I remember looking at the menu and it was really pricey, and even Cheech raised an eyebrow at the $40ish entrees. But we had an amazing meal with appetizers, entrees, wine and dessert. I felt bad it cost so much and offered to go dutch, but he wouldn’t let me. I was never one of the ones to pine for Cheech (so not sure why I dreamed about him) but he did look rather hot in my dream :-)

The second dream had me waking up with my heart racing. I was walking past barbed wire into some kind of work camp. I saw people dirty and in pens like you would see animals in at a farm. I had to walk with a line of people over these back to back ladder like things hovering like a bridge over water. I slipped and the last ladder came loose and fell into the water. The guard watching screamed at me as I apologized over and over. We kept going and we ended up inside and I saw a room that looked like it was framed out of bamboo and just had tarps over it. A bunch of people were inside wearing those old style military helmets watching something on a screen on the wall. Then there were bomb sounds and orange glowing lights just to make people scared. Inside were a bunch of offices, it looked like, and I just kept looking for a way out. I ended up outside back where those pens were and hiding under some tarp lying on the ground. I remember being muddy and wet and only one girl saw me go under there and was going to keep quiet. But eventually there was this lady guard that found me, and was sort of being nice by explaining what I was in for. She said the women were passed from guard to guard and then their fate is unknown. I was freaking out. Then I woke up just very uneasy and jittery.

Dream... The Amazing Race

Last night I dreamed that I was a contestant on The Amazing Race. My partner was a 40 something woman I didn’t know, which was odd. (That might make for an interesting season, to pair people with people they don't know.) And almost all the pairs are over 40-50 year old people. The game hadn't officially started yet. It was like a period of time before the game starts where they go over the rules, production, etc. At one point we were all gathering in a room with big round tables, and we had to dismantle tables from the walls in a contest. Maybe just getting us hyped up or something. And at one point one person from each pair had to go into a body of water and collect lobsters. My partner did this. This is all I can remember right now though.

Dream... fireworks, storms, beach, diapers...

So, I have no idea where I was except in some fancy beach area with a lot of hotels and stuff. I went with some friends and we checked into our room. And it was some big festive holiday like 4th of July, Mardi Gras or New Years. I'm leaning toward the 4th of July. Somehow my friends and I got separated, and cell service must have sucked there because I was never able to get a hold of them. And for some reason I wasn't able to remember exactly which room number was ours, or who's name it was under to check. I had a room key (those plasic ones) but it had no number on it.

So I decided that I should at least go down to the beach and enjoy the festivities while looking for my friends. It was probably late afternoon, early evening at this point. It was a very large beach, and several resort people were walking around getting things set up for games. I watched them set up rows of those little traffic cones in the sand for some relay races. I kept wandering and went inside some building (hotel or mall) and they had a bar in there. It had huge, maybe 15 foot stucco walls around it, with a cut out where you order. On the outside of one of the walls was painted with the names of about 50 mixed drinks that you could order. Impressive. I was going to order one, but had to run to the bathroom first. There was this other woman looking for the bathroom as well, so we started looking together. They weren't marked well. We ended up finding one, which was disgusting. There was a girl in there who noticed our disgust and bent over and said "That's why I have this". and we saw a diaper poking out of her underwear. OK, strange. But we went on our way to find another.

At one point I must have told this woman about not being able to find my friends, so she said I could crash later with her and her friends in their room if I needed. We headed up there so I could see where it was. There were probably 8 guys and girls up there just laying around like they were exhausted. So I did too. A last minute rest before the festivities. I remember thinking, as I looked over the balcony at the beach, about how crowded the beach was getting. If I had a chance to find my friends, it would have been earlier when things were getting set up and it wasn't so crowded, so I gave up the idea.

We headed back down to the beach, and somehow stumbled upon a group of people I went to high school with. I ended up talking to this one guy for quite a while on the beach. Don't remember what about. A bunch of us from both groups ended up going to a different hotel room that someone said would be perfect for watching the fireworks from. We get there and it has this part that is like a large box sitting off the side of the room. All 3 walls and the ceiling were nothing but floor to ceiling windows overlooking the beach. There was also a small, but busy, airport next to the hotel on one side. We kept watching small planes and helicopters take off and land. It was getting dark at this point, so all the runway lights and stuff made it pretty to look at.

We then noticed a storm brewing and coming towards us. It was going to pass directly over us, so we were a little freaked being in a glass room. As is got closer the rain started pelting the windows and the room shook a bit. Then it approached faster and then it was all of a sudden like we were in the eye of a hurricane or tornado. It was something kind of like Twister. We were all looking straight up at the inside of it and could see some clear sky all the way at the top, and a funnel cloud inside. It was a trip, but scary at the same time. It passed quickly though, and in time for the fireworks. The show was amazing, like every moment was the finale. I kept think about how much money they must have spent on this display. It was awesome, and glad I had the view I did.

I'm not sure how the evening ended, and I don't think I ever found my friends. But it was an interesting night.

Leaving Anacortes

I have to leave today, boo hoo. I just made sure everything was packed up this morning, including Fred having to sit on my suitcase to zip it up. I bought a thank you card for my Mom and Fred, and a sea salt and a chili dark chocolate Lindt candy bar for them. I hid them between some pillows for my Mom to find later (which she did). Then they drove me up to the corner to meet the shuttle. I was there about 20 mins early, and so was the shuttle. So just hung out until it was ready to leave. I was the only one being picked up at this stop. Between the ferry and a gas station in town, another 8 people were picked up. We had to stop 2 more places to make sure there were no walk-ins, which there weren’t. And we arrived at Sea-Tac on time around 3:45pm. I checked my bag, and boarding wasn’t until 4:55pm, so I had time to grab my dinner at Ivar’s as I had hoped. So I grabbed a cup of clam chowder and fried shrimp and chips “to go” so I could eat it at the gate. Went and sat down and chowed down. I ran to the bathroom at about 4:45pm and they were already boarding when I got out. I was on the plane, in my seat, before 5pm. Wow, that never happens. We weren’t supposed to depart until 5:29pm. I ended up with a window seat, and a woman sat on the aisle. I looked at her and said, “You were on the shuttle weren’t you?”, which she was. The seat between us was never filled, nice! And she and I chatted the whole way about her business (horseback riding ranch, Turtle Head Farm) on Orcas Island, her daughter being away at St Mary’s which is why she was flying down, my current situation and aspirations, our travel histories, her brother being VERY into Orca protection, etc. We basically chatted until we went our separate ways at the baggage claim. Very nice lady. Then I called my Dad and he picked me up. Nala was very happy to see me when I got home, and I checked in with everyone to say I made it home safely. Just catching up on a few of my shows that I missed, before I crash.

Anacortes

We rocked and rolled pretty good last night, and the mooring buoy kept banging on the hull, so that was nice while trying to sleep. That and the sounds of jets kept going until pretty late. But we left Hope Island this morning to head back to Anacortes. We had to leave around 9am or so, due to the tides, to get back out under the bridge. But that got us to Anacortes too early to enter the marina, because the tide was too low. So we anchored out and just read for a couple of hours. Once we could get into the marina, we did, then got our stuff together to head into town. Now that my trip is coming to a close, and the sale of the Piedmont house is almost finalized, they can finally start their official trip and leave dodge. So this weekend is an errand weekend for them, so they can get out of town on Sunday. So we had to hit up a few boat stores, the grocery store, Radio Shack, Bunnies by the Bay (suggested to me by someone who used to buy their stuff for a large retailer), pet hospital (to get Merlin’s nails cut), etc. After unloading stuff on the boat, we headed back into town to have dinner at Rockfish Grill. I had the San Juan salad, mixed greens with red onion, cranberries, gorgonzola and candied pecans. Then I had the fresh crab mac and cheese. Wow, it was good, and had a lot of crab in it. We wandered the street a little after dinner checking out the old murals on the building walls in town. And checked out this ship being built in their boat yard. It has a heliport on top… interesting. Then we just headed back to the boat so I could pack. And I thought my suitcase was full on my way up, it’s crazy full now. And I bought a small World Cup USA soccer ball which is going to have to go in my carry on, on the way home. Kind of a dumb purchase before having to fly home. Oh well. So bags are packed, snacks are made for the 3 hours shuttle bus then 2 hour plane ride tomorrow. At least the shuttle doesn’t leave here until 12:45pm, so I don’t have to get up crazy early.

Hope Island

Because of the tides, we had to wait around until 12:30pm to leave Spencer Spit. So we rocked and rolled for several hours (even with the flopper stoppers) until we left. Then we had a nice ride through Rosario Straight, passed Anacortes, and on to Deception Pass. The grey skies started turning blue as they have the last couple of days. Looks like it may turn out to be a nice afternoon again. We approached the bridge at Deception Pass which was quite pretty. As we came up on it, we saw a family standing on top and the kids were waving at us and making all sorts of noise. So we waved back and I took some pictures of them. The Bay beyond the bridge was really pretty with a lot of islands. We found the moorage on the side of Hope Island we were looking for. Fred and I tied up to the mooring buoy, then we got the kayaks down. As we were doing so, we saw 2 planes fly over in formation. Apparently one of the adjacent islands has a military base on it. My Mom and I hopped in the kayaks and started circling the island. The water was really clear and the coastline was very pretty with lots of trees, logs and little beaches. We beached the kayaks to see if Merlin would hop out and go pee, but he wasn’t having it, so we went on our way. While out there we saw a handful of military jets go over, which was pretty cool. My Mom thought we should maybe try to circle the island. But after what we later found on a map to be about ¼ the way around the island, we had to turn back because the current changed like crazy and we didn’t want to get caught up in it. So we headed back to the boat. We watched a little of the local Vancouver news again, which is always interesting. Then my Mom started making dinner, chicken dijon over rice, with corn. Then they we watched an episode of Star Trek (surprise surprise) and beauty and the Beast. Although I got up during Beauty and the Beast to watch the sunset, and take a bunch of pics. Really pretty one tonight. Back to civilization tomorrow.

Spencer Spit

We left Friday Harbor around 9am, and it didn’t take long to get to Spencer Spit, our next moorage. It’s on Lopez Island, and has a long beach peninsula with a cove on each side. We took the dinghy into shore, and had to take our shoes off and hop ankle deep in the water to get on shore. We then walked up the beach a while looking for sea glass, my Mom, Merlin and I. I found a couple of pieces, and Merlin kept picking up random pieces of driftwood, etc. Including a spine of a small animal. Blech!! My Mom bagged it to take back and show Fred. This cove is full of crabbers coming and going on their small boats, which means we almost have constant wake. I wasn’t feeling so hot when we got back because of this, but we all had lunch. That helped a little. Fred was reading up on the topside of the boat, so I went up there and laid on one of the bench seats for a while. The sun felt nice, but got to warm after a while. I came down and took a nap in my cabin for a while, as my Mom did so on the couch. She wasn’t feeling so hot either. We got up and my Mom made pork chops, rice and broccoli for dinner and we both felt a little better afterwards. During dinner we watched the news out of Vancouver. And they actually had a LONG segment on the NHL, can you believe it? They talked about the NHL awards, the Canucks, a big trade the Hawks made, and a retired Canadian player (Robinson) having his jersey sell for $1mil. WOW! And I did read yesterday about the Sharks goalie not being resigned. Bummer, but it was speculated. Good luck to you Nabby!

Friday Harbor... whale watching

Woke up at 9am today to get ready to head out on our whale watching trip. Some people were coming in on the ferry for the excursion, which was delayed due to heavy fog. So the tour was going to start at 11:15am. We got down there and checked in and got our anti-exposure suits. They were padded and definitely warm on this gorgeous day. Made me debate why we were wearing them. We grabbed hats and gloves too as they suggested. The other people on our tour was a family of 4 with 2 girls, maybe 7 and 10 years old. And another family whose daughter was maybe 16. So we had 10 people of a boat that seats 15, plus the captain and a naturalist. We headed out and had quite the ride, going maybe 30+ MPH and over some big waves. The captain was chatting with other boats about where the whales were, and if there were any sightings. While we were waiting, we stopped to see an island full of seals, then a few eagles on this island. Speiden Island, where the eagles were, is apparently owned by the owner of Oakley. We continued on, and apparently crossed the invisible dotted line that separates the US and Canada ;-) to find the Orcas. We soon caught up with a few other whale watching boats who were all watching this family of Orcas. Apparently they are a transient group, as opposed to the J, K, and L pods who live here. There were at least one or two adults and some youths that just kept hanging out. They would swim around the top, show their dorsal fins, blow their spout, dive under, come back up, dive back in and do it all over again. We moved along watching them for over an hour and they just kept doing this. They put on quite a show for us. Even the B.C. ferries coming by didn’t phase them. I took a ton of pictures, and luckily after getting them downloaded and zoomed in, I got some nice shots. Including one of the tail of one as it dove down in front of a sailboat. Lucky shot. We actually ended up very close to the town of Ganges on Salt Spring Island, in Canada. I actually visited there 5 years ago when I came up to the boat and we went around the Gulf Islands. After we’d been out over an hour, we had to head back. We actually went quite the distance to get to the whales, so had to high tail it back. And FYI, the distance we traveled one way today in about 30-45min (at 30ish MPH) would take about 4-5 hours (at 6 knots) on my parents boat. And let’s just say that I understand now why we wore the suits that we did. It was freezing out there. Once we got back we checked out the stuff for sale in the whale watch shop and I got a sweatshirt. We went back to the boat and made some grilled cheese sandwiches for a late lunch before going back into town. There was a magnet and ring I wanted to buy. But first we went to The Whale Museum and wandered around. It was small but nice. I ended up getting a fleece vest there. I was looking at another vest in town, but liked this one better. Then went and got my costume jewelry ring that I just had to have, my magnet, and stopped by the grocery for a couple of sodas and a new magazine. On the way back to the boat we stopped at the fresh seafood place on the dock and bought a pound of tiger prawns for dinner. My Mom made a ginger, teriyaki, honey, coconut marinade for the prawns (she stumbled upon a recipe in one of her cookbooks) over some jasmine rice. YUM YUM!! Then just the normal routine of some shows on DVD (Star Trek… for my Mom the Trekie) and me downloading my pics (YAY for some good shots of the whales). Just a chill night, after much walking the last few days. After tonight, I have 3 more nights on my trip. The last will be in Anacortes, which I don’t count. And we were going to hit this town La Conner, which my Mom compares to a very small Carmel. But since we’ve been in towns for the last 4ish days, I suggested we anchor out the next 2 nights in more rural areas where maybe we can hike and kayak. So that is the plan for now.