7/22 - Mount Vernon, Washington

Today was our first gray day in 5 1/2 weeks. It rained all night but stopped by breakfast. The rest of the day was lovely.....gray and cool . We are so lucky not to be in the heat at home right now.

We spent the morning taking care of chores which included groceries at Walmart.  It was a very nice Walmart, too.  The condition of local Walmarts has an effect on our impression of an area and we can report that Mount Vernon's Walmart passed with flying colors.

After lunch we went over to the Breazeale Padilla Bay Interpretive Center, about ten miles away. The Padilla Bay estuary has been protected as a result of many years of hard work by local people who didn't want it developed.  The leader of the group fighting against development was Edna Breazeale who, along with her brothers, had grown up on the bay on their family's farm. Fortunately, they were successful in getting the bay protected so it has remained as it was, surrounded by farms with its ecosystem relatively undisturbed.  As a result of area being undeveloped, a lot of scientific research is going on there.  

 Both pictures above are Padilla Bay's tidal flats with the tide WAY out. Tides this week are high at times we can't get out there so we could only see it at low tide.  Anacortes is on the other side of the bay (where we started out on our whale-watching trip). Tides there are 13 feet which they'd have to be to get all these tidal flats covered.

This is a novel way to get people down to beach level or water level depending on the tide.  It's hard to see in the picture but there's a metal spiral stairway going down from the center of the deck.  The supports are concrete so the water doesn't affect them. The deck makes a great viewing platform when the tide is in. They even built a concrete tunnel under the road so people can get to the water without getting run over. 

After going through the interpretive center (and escaping twice from a horde of very noisy Japanese teenagers on a field trip), we went a few more miles to see the little town of La Conner (population around 900). The name isn't French.  It was named in honor of the wife of the man who bought the settlement's trading post in 1869.....Louisa Ann Conner, thus LA Conner. 

One of the notable landmarks in the village....the Rainbow Bridge over the Swinomish Channel. Author Tom Robbins is a long-time resident of the town. 

Modern art version of a gull on top of a piling at the water's edge.  The town is full of artsy shops and galleries.

We wandered around around town a bit before heading for home, passing this lovely scene on our way back.  With the Cascades on the east and Puget Sound on the west, there's no lack of gorgeous scenery here.

Tomorrow we move down to midway between Olympia and Tacoma and will catch up with our tour guide (Gabe).