Two Casinos, Fish and Chips, and A Beautiful View

Thursday, we took a drive into the town of Anacortes, WA.  I'd only been there once before, and that was to catch a ferry to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.  I was a bit surprised about how "big" the town was. I lived in Seattle until I was in my early 20s.  However, since that time, I have lived in relatively small towns.  I spent 10 years in Westport, WA (population at that time about 2,000).  From there, we moved to Snohomish, WA.  We have been here for 25 years, with a few other small town moves in between.  The current population of Snohomish is 9,000.  Anacortes has a whopping 16,000 residents!  That's big in my eyes, and way too much traffic. Of course, the majority of the traffic is due to the ferry terminals which take travelers to the San Juan Islands, as well as to Sidney, BC, Canada.  So, the "big town" reference is relative.  If you are from a large city, Anacortes is a small town.

The names of many towns in Washington state are of Native American origin, however, Anacortes was named for Annie Curtis, wife of early settler Amos Bowman.  And that's my piece of trivia for this blog entry.

While just driving around the town, we spotted an RV park down on the water, so we went to check it out.

Here are a few pictures of the sites and one of the back deck of the social hall/lodge.  I'm pretty sure those sites that back up to the water are pretty near perfect in the summer.  I wanted to be those people sitting outside, enjoying the view!

We stopped at a lookout for the view and found this.

This is a Douglas Fir, from The Olympic National Forest, approximately 970 years old.  

It was 242' tall when cut.

Back in the truck, we were just driving around.  Kim is a retired commercial fisherman, and he had been to the shipyard in Anacortes many times, so we drove down to take a look.  We saw some signs pointing to the Cap Sante lookout.  It is a short, but narrow and winding road up to the top.  Not appropriate for anything other than passenger vehicles (cars, trucks - no RVs).  The views were gorgeous!

Next stop, lunch!  We were just tooling around side streets, and I saw a sign for the best fish and chips at the Island Cafe.  I have to say, I concur.  We were too hungry to think to take a picture before digging in, but here is what was left when we were through.

And our final stop in Anacortes was at the Northern Lights Swinomish Casino.  It's a small casino with a lovely RV Park out back.  

Both Kim and I left a small contribution to the Swinomish tribe before moving on to the Skagit Casino.  This casino is just down the road from Thousand Trails Mt Vernon where we are staying, so I suggested we stop and see if our luck had changed.  It hadn't.  At that point, it became obvious is was gin and tonic time back at the campsite.