Today is Labor Day, a bank holiday in America. The weather was grey as mist blew in from the Pacific. The campsite starts to look autumnal. I bought a cup of coffee from the coffee caravan - the camp shop closes for the season at 2pm. That is, it will next open in 2025.... The campsite is emptying out, half the sites are empty though tonight we are not the only hiker / biker, there's another couple of cyclists (there are five biker/hiker sites, so plenty of space). In the afternoon we walked along the shore, over to the Deception Pass bridges and then up to a hilltop on the other side of the busy road. The tide is coming in, though the tides are small. The bridges over Deception Pass are high above the water which is rippling and twisting with currents. It adds to the sense of vertigo. The side walk is narrow with slightly eroded concrete slabs that shake with the traffic but perhaps the most beautiful sight is the amazing web of girders that holds the whole thing together - see the photo - and they've been doing this since 1935.. The views from the hilltop are modest on such a misty day. The sun came out as we got back to the west facing beach, from a rock above the water we saw two otters swimming. Not far away
people were fishing. Back at the campsite I finished Annie Proulx's 'Close Range', stories set in Wyoming, with rather a grim humour at times and a high body count, but with the famous Brokeback Mountain short story as the standout best story of the book, and I'm now reading Jacques Nels 'A Man of Means' published in 1948 and with more than a touch of existentialism about it. A financier loses all his money in a crash, what remains of his sense of self? What is left? Very readable. Anyway, we are heading next to the San Juan Islands with some hope of fine sea views, quiet bike rides around the main island and perhaps orcas... We are still here.