The Fab Four Goes Coastal

The San Juan Islands were seriously prime. Weather check, family check, lodging check, food check, killer whales check. (Killer fucking WHALES ya heard!?!?!) Sorry for the french, but it was tight and I just want to make sure you all understand the magnitude of how sweet Cory's spot is and how much we enjoyed ourselves. Paul's parents, Bobby and Bill, were visiting Cory at the same time, so we all coat-tailed the family hospitality and home-cooked meals, while enjoying the familiar faces. After spending our days exploring the sculpture garden, the British camp from San Juan Island's historic Pig War, hiking tiny mountains, eating delicious regional Dungeon (or maybe it was Prison) Crabs, seeing three pods of orcas on a free whale watch tour, sunbathing, and checking out local happy hours, we had exhausted all that San Juan Island had to offer.

Fortunately, the inter-island ferry is $free.99, so we hopped on with all of our stuff to check out Orcas Island for a day. We arrived on Orcas by nine in the morning and befriended some local store owners to leave all of our gear with while we explored. On the islands, hitch-hiking is actually the preferred method of travel because it is legal!

We hit the curb for a short fifteen minutes and caught a ride towards Moran State Park. After a brief transfer to a more personable chauffeur, we made it to an awesome lagoon with bridge jumping and sun bathing to boot. After a relaxing day, we hitched our way back to the ferry, thanks to a man from Wheaton, MD. (Shout out Pollo Rico!)

We hit the ferry back to our car and set off to Port Townsend, WA to meet another awesome CC graduate, Sarah Delaney. She is staying with another generous CC family for the summer during her internship and was able to adequately house us all for the night. In what's becoming typical roadtrip fashion, we threw a delicious PIZZA PARTY and enjoyed a local watering hole for a delicious pitcher of Port Townsend's Scotch Ale.

We hit the road again the next day, now with two Sarahs, for Olympic National Park. With a hot spring plan firmly in mind, we arrived only to have our dreams of a natural hot spring soak shattered by road construction. But alas, we're pretty good by now at rolling with punches, and found a day hike with incredible views up Hurricane Hill before "backpacking" into PJ's Lake to spend a quiet night.

Since the backpack was only one mile, Ben decided to bring in the guitar. Shortly thereafter we realized that the hike was straight down (and straight back up the next day.) Fun was had by all and we dropped off Sarah Delaney at home and used her showers before heading to Vashon Island for a wedding!

And so it was that Amanda Heffernan married Joshua Mattson in a gorgeous field laced with sanskrit chants and alternative garb, cherry-wood smoked salmon, and hundreds of dancing, smiling friends and family members. (Amanda is essentially Paul's cousin for those out of the loop.) We camped at the site and tried to help as much as possible to show our gratitude for the invite. We were fortunate enough to cross paths with Paul's parents again and spent many an hour fraternizing at their lovely rented cottages.

Take a good look, this is as pretty as we get.

We left the morning after the wedding to head south to Oysterville to meet up with Sarah's and Kate's old friend Nicole Freshley. And guess what we made for dinner?!

Hand made dough and sauce from organic heirloom tomatoes!

We took an amazing walk along the bay to see the full moon and drank beers and wine by the fire. But the two Portland girls were anxious to get home after being within a stones throw for over a week now. We hit the road to the 5-0-3 and don't plan on leaving for at least a week, especially not after our hilarious first night here. We wandered into bar after receiving good advice from Kate's sister Sarah in time to catch the last round of BINGO of the night! (A little ironic to play our first game of bingo without Tommy and his beloved hat...) But the game went smoothly, and suspense built as our very own Benji drew close to victory. At at shocking turn of events, Ben and another less handsome man both cried Bingo after hearing O - 69 announced! After verifying that neither had cheated, the hostess declared that it was to be determined by a danceoff! (which we got on video)

Ben is awesome, other guy sucks.

And to add to the hilarity, the grand prize was one large purple rabbit vibrating dildo, complete with 4 AA batteries!

So if you're looking for a good time..... and you're here in Portland hit us up, because we'd love to see you!