I’VE TOOLED AROUND SEATTLE for the past four years without a car—after all, I’m a native New Yorker. And when vacation time comes, I seek travel that requires only my bike and my bus pass. Last year, while planning a three-day weekend trip for me and my travel partner, I discovered Vashon Island, only 20 minutes away by ferry. A little research revealed artists’ studios and quaint shops in the town of Vashon, rugged mountain-biking and hiking trails, a nine-hole golf course, 45 miles of shoreline…and, best of all, a rustic cottage at the Artist’s Studio Loft Bed and Breakfast.
I asked longtime Seattleites for their take on what looked like an ideal vacation spot. It’s nice! one insisted. It’s mostly farms and suburban homes, another stated flatly. Noncommittal near-recommendations that suggested no crowds and a casual environment where you could get away with wearing jeans and bike gear.
To locals, a trip to the island, located between Seattle and Tacoma in the Heart of the Sound, might be akin to spending a vacation in your own backyard with a kiddie pool and a portable TV. But my apartment doesn’t have a backyard or a kiddie pool, and farm-filled, bridgeless Vashon beckoned. (Residents of the island have resisted bridges for fear their rural enclave would “Mercerize.” When one was proposed in the early 1990s, a young King County councilman named Greg Nickels wrote a letter supporting the islanders and opposing the bridge.)
A bus can get you from Belltown to Vashon on the Fauntleroy ferry in an hour. When the ferry pulls into the slip at Vashon’s north end, downtown’s towers disappear behind the green peninsula of West Seattle, and you are transported. The five-mile ride to town, like most on the island, provides an excellent workout with many ascents and descents amid moderate to light traffic. From the landing, the tree-shrouded road winds uphill for two solid miles. (If that sounds daunting, stay on the bus, which continues into Vashon.) At the three-and-a-half-mile mark, you can hang a right at Southwest 156th Street and take a breather at the Vashon Winery (call in advance). When you arrive in the town of Vashon—which boasts roughly two blocks’ worth of retail shops, restaurants, galleries, a bookstore, a tearoom, and a farmers market—car traffic grows heavier but moves at a bike- and pedestrian-friendly small-town pace.
We leaned right at Southwest Gorsuch Road and carved the final, curvy, mostly downhill mile to the Artist’s Studio Loft Bed and Breakfast, spotting a deer at one turn and waving at the occasional passing car (a habit we picked up while touring Lopez Island). The B&B’s hand-carved shingle hung at the edge of a pasture. A bay-colored horse grazed in the neighboring field, flicking its tail and emitting low, sibilant snorts. The innkeeper, Jacqueline Clayton, greeted us, and we exchanged pleasantries as we padded alongside her—over stepping stones she made herself, in the shape of rhubarb leaves—to the meadow behind the main house, where the B&B’s four cottages are set.
Clayton, a painter and glass artist, bought five acres of what she calls “empty pasture with falling-down chicken coops” in 1993, and then began planting hundreds of trees and crafting gardens on the land. An avid traveler who’s now staying put, Clayton reconnects with her wanderlust here, through the guests at her inn. The original art studio, above the carport, became the first guest room; the cottages followed. Clayton and two other artists have decorated the rooms and grounds with their stained-glass art and mosaics, oil and watercolor paintings, handcrafted barn-wood furniture, and metal ivy gates.
She warned us not to let the inn’s cats in the cottage, no matter how much they begged. Then, smiling, she wished us a good stay and left us to our devices—a TV with DVD-VCR combo, a whirlpool tub, and a gas fireplace.
Published: October 2009
Who are the people in the photo? Looks like fun whatever they are doing.