We left our abode to amble amid the humble splendor of the grassy grounds and gardens, where maple, birch, cedar, alder, and cypress trees hide robins and woodpeckers and songbirds. We hoped to catch a glimpse of blue herons or eagles (we didn’t). From a pond behind the cottage, a lone frog chirped a lullaby at night.
In the mornings, the inn provided breakfast: muffins, cereal, granola bars, and fruit. (Clayton makes a sit-down breakfast for guests staying in the main house.) One of the inn’s cats, Myra, every bit as insistent as Clayton had warned, purred as we stroked her soft gray coat. She prowled the cottages for human attention and stalked the field.
For lunch we tucked in at the Hardware Store, the place to eat. Set in Vashon’s oldest commercial building, the restaurant charms with a worn wooden floor, exposed brick, a full bar, and deep booths. At the back of the room, a coffee bar steams and whistles out Americanos and lattes. Families with young kids and teenagers, techie business lunchers, day tourists, couples, old friends, and regulars convene to enjoy pancakes, scrambles, and home fries at breakfast and tasty items like a portabello or an open-face fish sandwich, which are satisfying for lunch. Or, for a more intimate midday meal, diners can order a bottle of wine to wash down a porchetta sandwich at La Boucherie, a seven-table restaurant and butcher shop serving lunch—and five-course dinners—on Fridays and Saturdays.
An afternoon tour of the east side of the island includes sights such as the famed Bicycle Eaten by a Tree—a Douglas fir that’s grown around a rusty Schwinn—and, near the town of Burton, the Judd Creek Bridge, which provides a tree-framed view of Quartermaster Harbor, Maury Island, and the Sound beyond. Peer down into the muddy bank of the creek where a mysterious, massive wooden barge decays, apparently abandoned. From here, Maury Island’s picturesque Point Robinson Lighthouse is another five miles to the east.
We’d had enough exertion. So the next day we avoided all nonessential physical activity and slipped into the Vashon Bookshop, where I fished an impeccable used copy of Ken Kesey’s Sailor Song from the shelves, then walked a few steps to the Vashon Tea Shop to lounge and read in a wicker chair for the rest of the afternoon. A French-speaking couple with kindergarten-age kids read from a guidebook at a table behind me. Girlfriends chatted quietly to my right, and what looked like the same 10 locals paraded outside the windows, wishing each other good day and patting each other’s dogs.
Back at the cottage that night, we set out on a starlit walk. But bright as the stars were, we couldn’t see our hands in front of our faces, let alone navigate a path. Instead, we sat on the porch in the inky darkness. Seattle felt farther away than ever, our closest companions unseen crickets and that frog chirping away in the pond.
Published: October 2009
Who are the people in the photo? Looks like fun whatever they are doing.