0002 Anacortes, Troopie arrives, and Easter

I flew into Seattle from Queensland younger than when I left ! How ?  Well, I arrived here 5 hours before I had actually left Australia after crossing the date line !! (At my age, this kind of detail is important !!)  I was still pooped, although less than I would have been after the wonderful lady who checked me in at Qantas in Brisbane had upgraded me to Premium Economy without me knowing !!  I had boarded the plane and was headed back to seat 47C in the cattle section which I had been allocated when I checked in on-line the previous night, when the hostie checked my boarding pass and said "Oh, Mr Cooper, you are further down the front" !!!   Woohoo !  Not quite as far forward as I would have liked, but a definite improvement all the same !! So had a very comfortable flight, and got lots of sleep. Mmmmmmm........
Once through LA (not too painful) and 3 hours later landed in Seattle, I caught the shuttle bus up to Anacortes where my sister Janet met me and we went up to her house, where she, Ted, and I had a good evening catching up on all our news.
Not hot in Anacortes, (10-12 deg C) but fortunately I had enough clothes to last me until Troopie arrived !

Spent a couple of days getting over my jet lag, walking in the beautiful Washington Park just down the road, and, after Ted took me down to a local telephone shop so I could get a local cell phone number, making phone calls to shipping and Tacoma Port people to find out when Troopie might be available.  The ship (Titania) arrived just one day behind schedule on the 16th April, and after a frantic Thursday when no-one seemed to know what was going on and when I could take delivery, at 5 pm I suddenly got the phone call I was waiting for, that I could pick her up the next day - Friday. 

Despite being Easter weekend, it is not a holiday in the US, so Ted kindly drove me the 2 1/2 hours down to Tacoma port, south of Seattle, where we expected a tussle with customs.  However, much to my surprise, within 10 minutes of friendly service, all papers were signed, and we just had to get the car and bring it back to Customs so they could check the VIN number against the paperwork.  Because the general public can't go onto wharves for security reasons, you have to book an
Escort, and expecting a longer delay at Customs, and knowing they take 1 1/2 hour lunches, I had booked my escort for 1 pm.  So Ted took me down into Tacoma to a delightful little seafood restaurant called Duke's Chowder House, overlooking Puget Sound for some lunch.
http://www.dukeschowderhouse.com/menus

I had delicious clam chowder followed by Alaska Weathervane Scallop Ravioli, and the scallops were YUMMY.  ( "Seared Scallops served with an organic herb butter sauce with freshly made pumpkin ravioli, white wine, garlic and tomatoes").  Strongly recommend this place if anyone comes to Seattle or finds one of the chain elsewhere.  I can't remember what Ted had, but he said his was great too !
After that, back to get Troopie, and after a bit more paperwork, we met Brian (our escort onto the wharf), and we went to get the car.  Apart from being parked very close to a "Honey Bucket" (Porta loo !!), she was fine, not a scratch on her, and she started first time. So once I had checked

everything, and taken off a few of the (many) shipping labels that had been stuck on the windscreen and side windows so I could see where I was going, I headed to the gas station to get a top up ($1.04 per litre !!) and then drove the 2 1/2 hours back up I 5 to Anacortes, with my trusty Tom Tom (not used since friend Daryl's US trip 18 months ago !) keeping me on the straight and narrow.
Half way home I spotted a silver Lotus Elise in the rush hour traffic behind me, and eventually he caught me up and we had a chat when he pulled alongside ! Small world.
Then it was back to the house, mission accomplished with a sigh of relief.

On Saturday evening Ted had to run down to do something on his 40 ft yacht Petrea, at a jetty about half an hour away in La Conner.  I went with him, passing the amazing colours of acres of fields of tulips in Mt Vernon - This week is their annual tulip festival which is a major spring tourist attraction for the area.  As usual, the photos are not nearly as good as the live colours of millions of tulips.  Then it was half an hours work on the yacht before returning home.

On Thursday night, my sister Janet's daughter (my niece) Suzanne arrived from

S. Seattle for Easter with daughter Zoe, and on Saturday night her husband Erik joined us, and we had a happy weekend, on the beach, on swings in the park, on an easter egg hunt in the garden (after a certain squirrel had helped himself to several ! I am sure he has a very sore tummy right now !), before they headed back home on Sunday afternoon.  I then spent the afternoon trying to scrape off two VERY stubborn shipping stickers from the windscreen of the car - I had to be careful because of the tear-offs I have fitted to the windscreen for stone protection - I couldn't use a scraper or it might damage the tear-offs.  So it all had to be done with fingernails, wet cloths, and WD-40.  All now done, but two sore thumbs !!

Just before supper I went for a walk around nearby Washington Park. For those of you who were following my Alaska blog in 2012, this was where I fell off my bicycle and had my Mulga Bill incident almost exactly 2 years ago to the day !   Trying to walk once a day at the moment, as it is a lovely 2 mile walk up and down hill, around the park, with the ocean inlets out to other islands in the San Juan chain right beside you. And then walking up the road to the house, 4 or 5 deer were in someone's front garden helping themselves to a feed - Deer are everywhere here, and no plant is safe in your garden !!    But the walk was a perfect way to end the day, and an exciting first week of my current adventure. All proceeding to plan !!!

More pics here :-   https://picasaweb.google.com/117739775480775657932/0002Anacortes?authkey=Gv1sRgCJLl95ORzpWCVQ#