July 9, 2017
Day 6 - Blake's to LaConnor: Time Out!
We got up a little later, thinking that we would leave our stuff at the Campground and head over to LaConnor for the day. The manager stopped by our tent on her way in and we asked if we had booked for one or two nights. Only one, she said – say what? $47.50 Cdn for one night? Here? We thought she had made a mistake and started over to the office to talk about it. On the way we stopped to chat with Captain Gary and his wife. They were in their camper/van and had come down from Port Townsend to partake in the Skagit Valley Highland Games. Gary is also a retired teacher, so we had much to chat about. We asked them what they paid for one night here - $32.00 US. Hmmm… I guess that is the going rate, but we were not sold. For that kind of money, I would expect a whole lot more from a campground. We had showers earlier and it cost $.25/minute!
We quickly made the decision (that would me me saying “no way am I staying here one more night!” and Jim very nicely going along with me) to cut our losses and find a place to stay in LaConnor. Packing up, we rode away, thankful not to have to return.
The ride into LaConnor was a little windy still, but not nearly as soul-sucking as the previous night. First up was finding a coffee shop with wifi. Before we could enter the coffee shop, however, we were stopped by a couple of fellow bikers. One of them was looking to buy a touring bike and wanted to know all about our Surleys. Talking bikes turned to talking routes, which then somehow turned to talking sports (that would be Jim, I think). Turns out the one gentleman from Southern California worked for the San Jose Sharks organization and the other, from Seattle, had no team, of course. Jim enjoyed his dose of hockey talk and eventually I went in to order coffees, muffins and to log on and find us a place to stay. 
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A short search and presto! We had a nice room booked at the Heron Inn, just a block away. In fact, we had passed it last night as we rode through town! We enjoyed our coffees and meandered over to our home for the night.
As we were a little early for booking in, we had a chance to sit on their front porch and watch the world go by – a lovely way to spend 30 minutes! Once we had our room booked, we hauled all the panniers up, locking the bikes up outside. Normally we would be a little concerned about not having them inside, but LaConnor is a pretty sleepy tourist town and we felt totally safe leaving them there.
Upstairs the first order of business was to plug in all of our electronics. We have more than a few things to charge up, one of which is our toothbrushes. Yes, we brought our electric toothbrushes! Don’t want to neglect our dental hygiene on this trip. However, this is when we found out that despite having TWO travelling chargers, we had somehow managed to not pack either one! Oh well!
Once everything was busy charging and we had both enjoyed a long (free with the room) shower, we headed out to explore the town. As it was Sunday, there was a local small band playing at the waterfront.
We enjoyed some of their music and then wandered in and out of the shops.
LaConnor is what I call a “Chick Town”, meaning that most of the shops are geared towards women, and women of a certain age. I did manage to find a top, which I bought as something that I could wear when I’m not on the bike, but other than that, it was just a little poking around. We stopped off at a bakery for something cold to drink and shared a delicious blackberry cinnamon bun – yum! Wandering back to our room, we spent some time working on this journal and downloading pictures.
After all that hard work, it was time for dinner. We had heard that the LaConnor Brewing Company was a good place and decided to give it a try. The wind had picked up again as we walked to the restaurant and we were happy with our decision to spend a few bucks to get a lot more out of this day instead of hurrying through and then riding against the wind again to go back to that campsite!
Dinner was deilicious and the beers much appreciated. The atmosphere was very laid back – lots of kids and dogs on the enclosed patio where we sat. All in all, it was a great way to end our day in LaConnor.
Today's ride: 12 km (7 miles)
Total: 94 km (58 miles)
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