2014-01-04 48 -122

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Location

Just off route 20 on Whidbey Island.

Participants

Rex Wolf (talk)

Plans

I thought I'd take the ferry out to Whidbey Island and try to get this hash. While I was at it, I'd try to haul a friend along.

Expedition

I was able to persuade my friend to come out to the hashpoint with me, so we set off. We happened to drive up to the ferry terminal just as they were loading for Whidbey, so we basically drove off the street and straight into the ferry.

I looked around out front, then went up to see what amenities the ferry had. It had a nice cafeteria area and all, but to my surprise, we were only about 20 minutes on the water in total before we were offloading on Whidbey. Kinda makes me wonder why they have food services at all, but I guess it could be nice for people who only want to grab something quick, like a sandwich?

When we got off the ferry, we decided to look for food on the way there. All we saw was a Dairy Queen, so we kept driving. And before we knew it, there wasn't much else but bush around us. I had looked ahead and noted that there didn't seem to be much room at the side of the road near the hashpoint, but on this section of road, there was a normal shoulder. My friend assured me it would be like this up near the hashpoint, too.

Of course, when we got near the hashpoint, the shoulder had completely disappeared. Finding a place to park the car was somewhat more challenging, but we found a driveway nearby that offered enough room to park the car for ten minutes or so. At this point, my friend begged off, because he didn't feel like walking, wanted a smoke, and was going to stay with the car "just in case it needed to be moved." Pooh!

I walked the rest of the way to the hashpoint myself and dove into the bush as I usually do. The cold weather had dried out a lot of this stuff, and it was brittle. Thankfully, it wasn't prickly, this time, and finding my way around was just a matter of making sure I didn't soak my feet by blundering into puddles or streams under the fallen leaves and other plant debris.

Once I posted the sign and took the necessary proofs, I just retraced my steps to get back to the road and headed back to the car. We did stop at the Dairy Queen on the way back, and had to wait about 20 minutes for the return ferry, but otherwise everything worked out very nicely, with the sun setting as we docked back on the Mukilteo side.