Statues And Handstands

Garrison Bay, San Juan Island, USA

When I woke up yesterday, I got up and toasted a bagel with cream cheese. Well I toasted the bagel and then I put cream cheese on it. The bagel was crisp, well I took it out and I thought I might have over done it, but it was crunchy and good! As I sat there I wondered what we were going to do for the day.

That question was answered an hour or so later when we decided to go to Roche Harbor for lunch. The dinghy ride was quite something but laying on the laundry bag was quite comfy so it was just fine. Even though it was a pretty long ride we planed the whole time so we got there in no time.

After tying the dinghy up next to an interesting dinghy that the owner had made a built-in lawn chair seat, I followed Mom and Dad up the dock. We dropped the laundry off and I thought we would go to the statue park first but Dad wanted to bring me to a secret place. So I agreed and soon we were on our way.

Dad is good at secret keeping and did not say a peep as we walked up the hill and turned onto different roads. What he did talk about was walking around this area when he was a kid. I can imagine him when he was a kid but not right where we were walking! It’s sort of crazy that we are going to the same places he went in the summer time!

We finally made it to an old cemetery and I thought this was the place but he said it wasn’t and that’s when I saw a sign saying The Mausoleum. Dad said that it was the place where he wanted to bring me. On the way to the site, we stopped and found a geocache and then moved on to The Mausoleum.

Finally we got there and it was huge, it is a big round thing with seats sitting around a table. After reading about it I learned that the family who had owned the Island were cremated and under each seat are their ashes. On the sign it also told us about the architecture and how it took $30,000 to make it in those times. The Father wanted to put a dome on it but one of the sons decided that they shouldn’t because it would cost another $20,000.

It seemed the family was a bit weird but I guess if you really wanted an amazing gravestone here one was. Dad remembered hearing when he was a kid that the wife only wanted to wash her hair in rain water so he made a huge rain water collection place just for her to wash her hair! The work you have to do for beauty!

In the area there was a geocache so we started looking. Dad eventually found it, and even though it was a small one, I thought it was a cool cache because of the area. Then we started on our way to the sculpture park. In no time at all we were there standing in front of the beautiful garden.

As we walked into to the park I looked around, the statues were everywhere stretching 20 acres. Some of them were not very close to each other and others were only about 10 feet. One of my favorites was a horse made out of driftwood, it showed so much expression. I liked guessing the prices of each one and then looking at them. Some that I thought didn’t look very good were super expensive and others that I thought were awesome and wanted myself were still pricey but a ton cheaper. One that I didn’t like was a drill that just stuck up in the air 20 feet, they had taken five different drills, painted them red and then welded them together. The drill was $12,000, I couldn’t believe it! Others that I thought showed so much creativity were maybe $5,000.

The last few statues we saw were cool, one of them was an alligator and it looked so fierce! When we made it back to the dinghy we went to see if the Hughes wanted to go on a little walk. We ended up going over to an old English camp, that was at the time when the English and the Americans were going to go to war over a pig! You should research the Pig War!

The Hughes had brought their dog Buckley on the hike and he is so funny, running back and forth! It wasn’t a very long hike, I don’t remember much to tell you the truth. We walked along and talked, Brian talked about hiking up there before. Soon we were at the top looking down at the beautiful view.

On the way down we took the shorter but steeper way. Chloe and I had to run some sections since it was easier and then it was over with. When we got to the old cemetery we did our first hand stand photo. We did a handstand against a tree, it was so much fun that we decided to do more.

There was a sign that told about the Pig War, it was so big and sturdy we decided to do another handstand on it! This was much easier since it was pretty much flat and we had plenty of room to move around. When we got all the way down we did one on an old building, it’s a fun thing to do, I should do it more often!

For dinner Dad and I made flank steak and Mom and Dad made pasta salad. Then we brought it over to the Hughes’ boat so we could have a big dinner! Dinner was great fun and after finishing, we had dessert with extra whipped cream! After dinner we played Apples To Apples and I have never played with so many people. We laughed basically the whole time because some of our answers were ridiculous! It was such a fun night of games!