Time Travel: 1978 and the Pacific Northwest

After college, I lived in Washington State in the Pacific Northwest for a time and fell in love with the region’s natural beauty. Forests of towering evergreens that make you feel insignificant cover the landscape. The magnificent Cascade Range, with snow-clad volcanic peaks such as Mount Rainier (elevation 14,410 feet), Mount Baker (10,781) and Mount St. Helens, which famously erupted in 1980, surround you. And the beautiful Puget Sound, which envelops the San Juan Islands, lies within easy eyeshot. A ferry from the town of Anacortes winds through the islands, stopping at a half-dozen ports along the scenic way.

All of it is breathtaking.

I had not returned to the area since my six-month residency there 47 years ago, but I wanted to visit my brother who lives there and show Donna the drop-dead beauty of it all.

We landed in Seattle-Takoma International Airport after a stressful flight, picked up our rental car, and crawled north in bumper-to-bumper traffic during the afternoon rush to our hotel 100 miles away in the quaint Fairhaven section of Bellingham. After an hour and a quarter, the scenery transformed from that of any major city interstate to the soaring mountains and evergreens of my memory.

We had a fun evening with my brother JD, catching up over dinner in a favorite haunt of his in town. The next morning, after a late breakfast, we said our good-byes to JD. Donna and I found the house on Lake Samish JD and I lived in all those years ago before heading out to Larrabee State Park along Chuckanut Drive, a splendid twisty road cut through the ancient forest that hugs Bellingham Bay with obscenely gorgeous views.

I had hoped this drive had remained unspoiled since my last time here, when there was no Microsoft or tech industry, no Internet or PCs or cell phones. Had the area become bougie, overrun with techbros and their Ferraris and McMansions? Had Chuckanut been widened and straightened to accommodate an influx of tourists?

The answer, thankfully, is no. The drive was exhilarating, even in our tank-like Toyota 4Runner. The park itself has trails that alternately offer you incredible views of the bay and distant mountains, and take you deep in the primordial fern-filled forest, where you expect to see dinosaurs, or characters from Twin Peaks, emerge from the dense foliage. We soaked in that almost spiritual experience, then made the 45-minute drive to Anacortes.

Back in 1978, I and a few friends drove across the country. People dropped off along the way and I ended up in Bellingham, where my brother lived. The job market there being weak, I held odd jobs, then went through an agency that got me a job as a prep cook at a restaurant in Friday Harbor, a tourist town on San Juan Island. I took the ferry and found that the lodging the agency had arranged for me turned out to be in a dirt-floor cellar under a house near the restaurant with eight or 10 other bereft souls. I lasted eleven days before I hopped on the ferry back to the mainland and never returned. That had been my entire experience with the San Juan Islands, Puget Sound and the spectacular ferry.

I had mixed emotions about going back to Friday Harbor, but I very much wanted Donna to experience the ferry ride through the islands and to see aspects of my past she had only heard about.

We caught the massive ferry, which holds 150 cars and 1,500 passengers, the next morning. The hour-and-ten-minute ride was tranquil, with Puget Sound calm as a lake. The sound of the pulsing engines was muted when we sat indoors; outdoors their churning, and the wind, livened things up as we thread between islands, some with a single orangish cedar cabin snuggled in a hillside or along the water’s edge.

As we arrived, Friday Harbor seemed pretty familiar. The dock apparatus and signage hadn’t changed, and the restaurant I had toiled at was still there, although with a facelift and new name.

We strolled around the town, had a cup of coffee on a patio looking out on the harbor, then had lunch at my former employer. It was rather surreal, but the food and service were good, and the view incomparable. I wondered who worked in the kitchen, and what their living arrangements were.

Here are more pictures….

Larrabee State Park