My Passport’s Travels

Travel day – April 10, 2026

With the wonderful news that the tulip bloom in Skagit Valley has finally hit Full Bloom status, it was time to fly up to visit Bekah for a lovely long weekend!

Mt Hood deigned to show her face as my flight descended into Portland.

Bekah had to work in the morning, so I grabbed lunch at the airport (the Country Cat Cafe, where I had a lovely mixed green salad with cranberries and candied walnuts with a homemade buttermilk biscuit on the side). The timing worked out so that shortly after I finished, she was on her way to pick me up! We hit the road around 1pm and started the drive up into Washington. Along the way, we happened on a skydiving school!

The drive took us off the interstate and into some beautiful countryside.

We pulled over to watch Artemis II make history with her splashdown! (All screenshots are from the NASA coverage.)

About this time, I asked what would become a fateful question, “Will we be crossing a big bridge?” Looking at the map app, I could see a large body of water. It turns out, that no, we would not be crossing a bridge. Siri was sending us by way of a ferry – that we didn’t have reservations for. We were so close at that point, we went ahead and tried, but the gentleman at the dock said that there was no way we would make the next one as a standby and that even being first in line as a standby, we most likely would not make the one after that. He did suggest going back and catching a different ferry, but in the end our choices were:

• Catch the other ferry (that didn’t take reservations so we had no way of knowing our chances) and arriving at the hotel around 10 if we made the ferry or 11:30 if we didn’t, or
• Throw in the towel and driving around Puget Sound, which would also have us arriving at the hotel around 10.
  We chose the drive. After filling up the car’s tank ($5.89/gallon for regular unleaded!), and our tanks (at the Chimacum Fruit Market – fantastic sandwiches on homemade breads and an amazing cardamom snickerdoodle) we hit the road, um, again.

We were rewarded with more beautiful views!

A glimpse of Mount Rainer on our way into Seattle!

We did eventually make it to our lovely hotel: The Best Western Plus Oak Harbor Hotel & Conference Center. Needless to say, we collapsed into bed after the long drive. But it had been a lovely day!