Blog

I’ll tell you what’s up….August… the Hump month in Friday Harbor, and I mean that as in “getting over the hump” not otherwise.  Like a rising tide, the visitors started trickling in during May, steadily increased in June, swelled alarmingly in July, and then surged off the ferry in August, breaking against the frail bulwarks of the shops of Harbor, car alarms blaring, kids wailing, dogs snapping.  Cash registers rang valiantly, straining to ingest the flying piles of cash and plastic cards.  In the restaurants, college-softened wait staff collapsed under the demands for seating with a water view.  Drivers inched slowly up Spring Street, nervously scanning for suicidal jaywalkers to break from the pack and dash into the street.  The dust has settled at the County Fairgrounds up on Argyle Street, where the sheep were shorn and the shawls were shown.  The burnt ground where the Angel Fries booth caught fire still shows a bright greasy black.  Down in the Port of Friday Harbor, the Pirate Rendezvous is over, with its All Too Frequent Random Acts of Cannonness.  It was a good summer.

September is actually my favorite month in Friday Harbor.  If August is the month for family vacations here, September is the adult month.  Bright clear mornings, the later sunrise at a much more civilized time for viewing.  Room to sit and linger in the restaurants and coffee shops.  Down at the waterfront, the kayak and boat rentals have settled down, and the dock staff nap on top of the dock boxes.   Even the overworked whales relax, and go back the Fall Schedule with once a day shows.  The ferries reconfigure their seating for Winter Service, take out the hard benches and reinstall the recliners, reopen the buffet and the TV lounge.  And of course, ferry ticket prices go back down.  The local pigs grow wings and get ready for their annual migration to the mainland.