Summer on Whidbey island

 " introducing you to my hometown is one of my biggest wishes"


Packed our stuffs, we left early for the morning ferry. It took me 4 years to take a ferry again in WA, and somehow memories started coming back, of the old friends. Oddly, I haven't seen the companions of my previous ferry trips for a long time, some of them can't be named as friends anymore, while some are just following what it is called: time, the most destructive parting away tool to distance people. 

The ferry ride was quite pleasant, there weren't many people. After finding our car a good spot, We got up to the ferry dock for the coming sunrise, that I have not been able to watch as my body clock has never woke up that early.  The sun shines its twinkling rays on to the sea, embellishing the plain water canvas. It was peaceful. 

The island appeared sudden,  a new planet was just born into the solar system. We were surprised with bunnies everywhere, on the side of streets, in people's houses/gardens, in the parking lots, in schoolyards. The cause sounds like a joke but is actually true: there was a local county fair in town, few bunnies escaped, they couldn't track them down, and as you already know, just like rats, they have a very strong reproduction system, soon after that, they multiplied themselves. Back From when there were only a few, people were saying how bunnies are so cute. Now it has come to the point that people are saying how it's a "Plague". One of the farmers even told me when I was taking photos of the bunnies in her barn, to take some bunnies back with me, she's already had enough of them.

Laina welcomed us warmly in one of her favorite restaurants in town, the breakfast was casual, filling with our updated life stories from us as it seems a tradition every time we saw each other. After the breakfast, she took us to a small town nearby with a long beautiful beach park. Luckily, we got there when it was low tide,  we could even see the cascades and the mainland. The sky was so blue stretching all along the sand coast, seems like they were trying to meet up at the horizon. We took our shoes off, trying to dodge all the mosses and seaweed mushing around, hidden in it with the abandoned shells waiting for somebody to step on, as it knows this soft sand was luring all of those soft-hearted people towards the Natural beauty out there. Laina tried to help me go through all these water plants while I was trying to help her get out of the swamp traps that were placed around the sandbank, we played like 2 little kids as if we were on our drunk night during our college days 5 years ago.

She then took me to a beautiful place called "Freeland" area, where she spent most of her childhood at. She explained to me why the place has its name and the history that goes with it, through her tone, I could see she had a deep love for this place.  After a short drive around "Free Land", we stopped at an even bigger beach shore with driftwoods everywhere, the tide was still low, leaving the whole empty sand space for people doing their summer activities, most of the kids with their eye wide open were having fun with the tide pools, some of them flying their kites before the winter kicked in, while their parents were watching them and probably trying to record these pure moments in their memories before it fades away someday. 
The sun was dazzling at its peak in the summer noon. We walked along the shore, dipped our feet through the crystal waters, I could see beneath those seabeds some little fishes wandering, hiding through the seaweed. Joining the little kids, we tried to trace those tiny fishes and made ourselves realize how lubberly we could be compared to the younger ones. I instead found myself a cute giant yellow starfish, that was also the first time I've seen one outside the Aquarium. That day I learned, after all those past years firmly believed starfish as silky soft, in fact,  Starfish skin is hard like touching leather, mind blown, at least for me. While I was having a big discovery moment, Laina brought back a cute hermit crab.  She hasn't seen one since she was a little girl and couldn't stop skipping around and taking photos of it. 

Long and exhausted, we found ourselves back to her mom's cheese specialty store, I was officially introduced to her mom, who was always eager to see me in person and so was I. I couldn't wait to see the one who raised my lovely friend. She had both talked a lot about us to each other and right when she met me, she invited me to try all the cheeses and right there, I understood why Laina has grown up to be such a kind woman and my adorable friend.

We crossed by the pie bakery next door, picked up ourselves Apple and Marionberry pies, we headed off to the hill nearby, where we can overlook Seattle dwarfing faraway, the islands around, the grass fields and the ocean with sky beyond.  We sat down at a bench at the hilltop, enjoyed the " literally the best pies" I've eaten till now, weren't too sweet, weren't too much doughy, the ratio between the crumbles and fillings was just perfect as how our universe is. I was impressed, not only of how good the pies were but under these beautiful sun rays, the nice breeze from the ocean in the early falls, with the magnificent views from nature. I couldn't be more content.

We walked around the farmers market, adventured more places on the island, and settled down ourselves at a rusty looking seafood restaurant next to the sea. The hot pipping specialty curry mussels were served with a side order of the crunchy coconut shrimps have made our stomachs roaring like those starving birds towards the seafood feast. Putting aside all the etiquettes that were placed on the society to eat like those elegant nobles hundreds of years ago, we dived in using our bare hands taking off the meat out of the shells, sinking it again into the curry ocean for soaking more flavor, clinging to each other and enjoyed the fresh taste of the mussels harmonizing together with the mild flavor of the curry soup. We ordered ourselves some drinks and trying to hold our bursting laughter recalling the night 5 years ago, we drank ourselves away, climbing to the forbidden balcony at my balcony, indulging the Seattle Iconic Dick's Burger while watching and greeting people passing by from above. It was a wild night~

To end the day, she took us to her secret favorite place where the horizon meets the sky and the sea, the road was long, the grass hill was tall and the mountains were fierce. We walked up to the first house on the island, it was abandoned at this point and was made into a historic site of the island. But when we were there, there wasn't anybody there. The house was placed in a beautiful open space with gardens of flowers and dandelions on the sides, from the house, you can see why the first owner decided to build the first home here. Why wouldn't he/her when you could wake up every morning, looking beyond this harmonious beautiful picture of an island from far away, the sky, the clouds, and the ocean?  We peaked our eyes into the house like those little kids playing their ghost hunting game, we took photos under the only giant tree nearby, joking around if we found a photo of ghost here, guess how fast who was gonna run first? 

We spent our last minutes on the beach down the hill to look the sunset going down, we talked how our time together always ended up with beautiful scenery, filled with laughs, joys, meaningful conversations and obviously, our silly dolly photos. I remembered we just sat there, wishing we could have another day like this again and hoped for another visit in the near future. On the way getting back to Seattle, we passed by a bird watching lake, right where all the birds start taking off, leaving the placid surface behind through the sunset, an immense love suddenly swelled up in my heart, I turned to Laina: " I'm grateful to be, in your hometown with you, I'm grateful to whomever above has destined our 101 English classes to be next to each other because being in the same group in sociology class apparently didn't bring us to speak to each other, I'm grateful I could be friends with you, though I don't know what it is gonna be like in the future, I just wanna tell you this moment will be held dearest in my heart"






















Bunnies were every where.































Sinking into the muds.































































bonus

love

more love

love in the air!

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