I make plans to do things early in the morning but lately that hasn't been working out. My phone alarms went off at 7:15am, 7:17am and 7:18am, and then every five minutes after that until I managed to become conscious enough to disable all three of them. By then, it was about 8:20am. Alarms are worthless.
Furthermore, I was planning on picking Tomko up from Fort Zarpaws around 10am, but that wasn't really happening either. Mish ended up bringing him over to the Nuthouse sometime before noon. I packed things, lost things, found things, ate breakfast, jumped on Brian's bed with Davi, and tetrised Byzantium into some semblance of order. We left Olympia by one in the afternoon.
We drove up the Olympia Peninsula towards Port Angeles. Here are some things you may or may not know: The Olympia Peninsula is formed by Puget Sound, which is a body of water that Seattle is on the east side of. On the west, we drove up a main highway that did not seem to enjoy this status (signs warned that "back-ups of more than five cars are ILLEGAL" and gave copious turn-arounds in an attempt to make us speed up).
This is also where the Twilight books take place. The main character lives in Forks, but the nearest real town is Port Angeles. Port Angeles seems to enjoy this status. We saw a store called "Dazzled by Twilight" that appeared to have nothing but Twilight-themed knickknacks.
We wandered Port Angeles because it did not occur to us that ferries fill up. When we arrived, the sign said "5:15 FULL, tickets available for 9:15." So we went to watch a movie across from the Twilight store. We could have gone to see TWILIGHT: ECLIPSE, but instead we saw Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (?). It started out like it would have made sense, but by the end I think everyone was just staring at the screen in confusion. And by everyone, I mean all six people that were going to see this movie at 5pm on a Monday in Port Angeles.
After the movie, we were bored, cold, and had three more hours to kill. I had been trying to call Herbwise Farm, but both numbers I had weren't working. I called up a friend and had her log into my e-mail, in which Karla had e-mailed us to say that her phone wasn't working, and my friend e-mailed her back saying that we were going to be later than expected, sorry. Then Tomko and I went into the building on the water that was some sort of visitor's center/art gallery/ferry routing/bathrooms collection and went to the restaurant on the second floor, ordered a pitcher of beer, and drank it. By the time we were done, it was 8:30pm and reasonable to go back to our car in anticipation of ferrying.
I have never seen or ridden on a ferry before.
When we bought our ticket, we drove through this little... drive-through place, paid $70, and then were told to park our car in Lane 11 and return before 9pm, when they load the ferry. So we came back and sat around in our car for about half an hour, while other people returned to their cars. We were all immobilized by the other cars around us, waiting for the cars ahead of us to go so that we might one day. Some guy came around and collected tickets from each of the cars. There were signs telling us not to bring gasoline onto the ferry. Eventually, the cars in front of us started moving and we followed them. Dudes with flags directed us to park in a certain area. I got out and looked around: We were at the bottom of a ship. It was like a parking garage, except that instead of doors there were hatches to escape. Ferries are kind of cute. We left the car as directed and went up. There was an area of chairs, an area of benches and tables against the walls, an area where food existed, and we could go outside but who would want to? It is cold outside. We went out and watched Port Angeles lights receeding and the water churning out from behind the ferry, then hustled back inside, where we pulled out
our laptop and watched an episode of True Blood.
We didn't get to finish the episode when an announcement came on telling us to go back to our car. Then we waited for a long while until eventually our line of cars drove away. The "customs checkpoint" was a little toll booth, except instead of making us pay a toll they looked at our passports and then asked us a few questions and waved us through. Now we are in Canada!
The ferry drops us in a city called Victoria, which is a very cute city, but Herbwise Farm is about 50 miles north of it, so we didn't stop anywhere and headed off. We didn't have any difficulty finding the farm and luckily I remembered the street number because it wasn't labelled with its name.
We parked in a gravel driveway among some other cars, all which were from "Beautiful British Columbia" according to their license plates. Then we looked around. There was a light on in a window, and some other mysterious buildings in the dark. We walked toward the window, and a very bright security light came on. Some guy appeared in the window.
Me: "Hi, I'm Kylara?"
Tomko: "Is this Herbwise Farm?"
Scott: "Yeah. Do you sleep in your truck or do you need a place?"
Me: "Uhmm, we could pitch a tent?"
Scott: "I'll be down."
We waited for ten minutes or so. Scott had a flashlight and told us to grab our sleeping bags and things, and led us along a path, around a pile of gravel and tractor, through some trees and to a little cottage. It had an adorable porch and electric lights, which we turned on. It also had a bed and two little tables. It's like a real place.
Scott waved his flashlight further down the path and said that's the outhouse, then left. I checked out the outhouse: A very traditional-type outhouse, with a half-moon on the door, a handle made out of the jawbone of some animal (the teeth wiggle a little like they want to come out when you grab it), and latches made out of sticks that rotate to block the door.
I made the bed and then went to sleep, for it was late.
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