- photo by Martin Lynn
This is the end of Waterspot1.
It's the end of a long chapter for us. I have raked up my last pinecone. We were lucky to have had this unique experience, and will treasure our happy memories.
Wild burros at Lake Pleasant.
A model of the BMW Oracle, which won the America's Cup Race 2010 and again in 2013 on display at the Maritime Museum. Oracle founder Larry Ellison founded the group that owns it.
Fog on another day. I miss our boat trips but not being out in the fog, where you see nothing but white and can't tell if anyone else, like a cargo ship, is out there. We hear lots of boat horns on these days.
We didn't know about the lock thing. People leave these under the information sign at the overlook. It was jammed, no room left for any more! Not being cool, we don't know what this means. But there is a lot of hardware there.
Waterspot10
Fog season seems to arrived early. We often have heavy fog in the mornings that in Skyline lingers until mid-afternoon. Everywhere else it lifts and gives other people a blue sky by 10 AM. We live in a serious fog pocket. Fog forms when warm moist air encounters a cold surface, like the ocean. So we have sunny afternoons but pay for it with fog the next day.
- by Georgi Kolarov, Bulgarian artist
July 21 - 31, 2025
One day we encountered this wonderful 1958 or 59 Thunderbird in the park. Bruce somehow knows every car grill and taillight style and can readily identify the year. The Archives where I worked put this talent to use and had him date a bunch of old photos by identifying the year of the cars that were pictured.
This one has been restored and was in perfect shape.
Mt. Erie is popular with rock climbers and the occasional paraglider. It's a favorite view for local photographers as well.
We had plenty to eat already but stopped at Mat Hatter's Ice Cream which was across the street for an overpriced cone for Bruce.
This is a great shot of the rowers. The site didn't identify which tribe.
- photo by Roy Morris
The wooden wheel from the ferry Vashon.
My major reason though for going was to go over my list of murals with the curator who is restoring them, and to see where the 3 or 4 that I don't have photos of might be. They have been taken down for repair. Bill Mitchell, the mural artist, did this self-portrait. He was disabled from a car accident as a teenager and used this cart to get around town. It has been moved inside the museum for protection.
Washington Park.
Formal portrait of a Chinese Family in Anacortes. Many immigrants came here to work in fishing, canning, and lumber industries. The Chinese worked in the canneries.
Someone got this shot from a ferry looking at Mt.Baker through Obstruction Pass on a misty morning.
- photo by SilatScapes
This is a wooden dory used for cod fishing in a past century.
- photo by Rising Moon Northwest
This week the Valkyrie, the viking ship built here in Skyline, left for a new home in Paulsbo. Crowds gathered so see it pass under the Deception Pass Bridge on its way. It is the only Coast Guard certified Viking ship in the country.
While we were downtown we stopped in at the Maritime Museum. This is a model of a fishing boat and you can see the small but very well done museum behind it.
July 29 was sunny so Sue Percich came on the ferry from Friday Harbor to meet us for lunch. This is bar at the Rockfish Grill where we ate.
Ferry arriving in Anacortes at sunset.
-photo by Denis Law
Another old white wooden church, Edison Lutheran, in front of Mt. Baker. Sadly it has several newer additions that obscure the lines of the original building which is over 100 years old.
- photo by Tandem Wheels
The fog is slowly lifting and disappearing over the channel in front of Cypress Island, seen from Washington Park.
I don't know which tribe these rowers are from either. But it's another fancy boat. showing native art.
This is the end of Waterspot10. Go to Waterspot11 to continue.
No escape from politics! On a truck parked in the park.
Another early business, The Anacortes Steam Laundry and its two delivery carts. These are probably from around 1880-90.
Our after-lunch outing was a drive up Mt. Erie, the highest point on Fidalgo Island where you can see a long way on a clear day, which we had. That is Campbell Lake in front and Skagit bay beyond. We used to take our boat there.
We haven't been here for many years, and I forgot what a narrow, long, steep, winding road it was to get up there! It was also a deep dark forest all the way up and there is barely room to get by if you meet another car sneaking around a curve. Bruce drove the last time; the road could use some TLC and I hit a couple potholes but my passengers were brave and we made it!
Our route through Washington Park.
Self-proclaimed tree huggers.
Two of our first dining establishments, which were in tents- The Fidalgo and Vienna Restaurants.
All photos are from the Anacortes Museum
And a hidden mural! This is the artist Bill Mitchell's grandfather Bill Bessner. He appears in other murals around town with his fancy car and motorcycles, so he was a cool dude with a love for fast machines in his day. This was stuffed in a corner sitting askew in a basket of cork floats so not really on display. The Curator at the main museum told me where I could find it or I would not have seen it.
Looking north we see a cloud bank above the fog layer. And bright, bright blue.
July 30, the fog is back. Ferries seen from Washington Park.
Here are we three on top of Mt. Erie.
Skyline is supposed to have 5 parks but we've only found 3. This is Clubhouse Park on a foggy morning. I take that path to yoga class on Sundays. We often see deer here.
Plus stickers! We don't know what a lot of those mean, either.
- photo by Leslie Dorn
Most of our mornings start out with coffee by our fireplace in the condo. We're glad we had the gas line and insert installed since we use it so much. Even on sunny days here the high is only around 65.
There is an island out in the lake. And you also get a nice view of Mt. Baker from up there. Mt. Rainier is often visible on the far horizon, but not today.
They also had old cameras on display, including this glass-plate one and a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye.
And watermelon season is here.
The native tribes had one of their big traditional canoe gatherings again, with tribes from all over the region paddling down to Elwha, in Washington but quite a distance from us. Both men and women row and it is a serious challenge traveling in open boats such a long way. They stop overnight at different reservations on the way. It was a bad weather day when the local tribe launched so we didn't go see them.
End of July: Fog, Washington Park, Mt. Erie
And then this happened that evening! It fortunately turned out to be a non-issue in our area. But we see the ocean from our condo and we are in a designated Tsunami zone so we took it seriously. There was no evacuation order or anything, just an advisory to stay off the beaches and out of the water.
This site got 350 hits in July, thank you all for following our adventures!
It's the last day of July, which means our summer stay is half over! We made some wildlife sightings today, a little doe on the condo lawn, and a Crow playing King of the Mountain next door.
On July 28 we finally made our way to Sugar Mama's for lunch only to find this cute place with a great menu was closing the next day! It has a lovely patio under all those purple umbrellas, away from the bustle and traffic on Commercial Avenue, but our waitress said after two years the place was not making a profit. This is the third restaurant here to close this year.
I also stopped in at the Anacortes Museum. The exhibit on Anacortes Photographers has been up for awhile but includes some great old photos and the stories of the people who took them. Plus this cool giant camera is in the middle.
We also watched this boat from the park, which says "Research" on the side, but we couldn't figure out what it was doing. Western Washington University in Bellingham runs the Shannon Point Marine Center nearby where they carry out ocean research so we assume it came from there.
This attack of the orange cones, at the busiest intersection in town at the height of the tourist season, is self- inflicted chaos organized by the city. Every corner is being torn out and traffic is down to a single lane each way. Since there was not enough room for the volume of car traffic to begin with, they decided to narrow the road, add bike lanes and put in more trees.
I used to get photos of manhole covers on Facebook all the time, but they disappeared for a year and now returned. This beauty is from Seattle, but they show designs from all over the world.
Here he is with his convertible roadster. This one of my favorite murals. He is also shown with his 1908 Indian motorcycle. This one is called "Wild Bill."
The town is full of tourists on vacation and all their stuff, so we have to watch out for things like this is the parking lots.
Amos Bowman's store and the first Anacortes Post Office in 1890. The founder of Anacortes, Bowman named the town for his wife, Anne Curtis in 1879. He was a railroad surveyor. This site was near today's Third street and Q Avenue, near the Guemes Channel.