ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE

Greetings from Paradise,

This morning while watching the news I realized how thankful we are to live in the great Pacific Northwest AND on an island. San Juan Island to be exact. Some call it Gilligan's Island as there are many colorful characters that live here. Our overall population is about 7,500 people who live here year-round. In the summer the population soars, to what some estimate at over 30,000 people. We don't have any traffic lights and our roads are narrow. In my opinion, too narrow for the bicycle enthusiast's our community attracts. It's a step back in time when you come to the island and some people who are used to the big city get bored quite easily. There are no McDonald's or other fast food chains here and our 2 grocery stores on the island are owned by the same person so we pretty much get gouged in pricing. We do have a community theater which puts on wonderful productions and a movie theater (A 2 plex I think you would call it). With an hour's ferry ride and another 30 minutes by car, we do have access to the big box stores so about every 3 mos. or so we do a stock up run to Costco, Wal-Mart and other shopping destinations. You can always tell who the locals are in the ferry line coming back from a day of shopping by the purchases of toilet paper and paper towels from Costco. And of course there is online shopping which has been our lifeline.

After growing up in Southern California in a small beach community (Newport Beach and Corona del Mar) this is like a throwback to the 60's and 70's. I can remember when our California beaches were a summer destination for vacationers but then each winter we would get our little surfer towns back and await the next tourist season. Then in the 80's moving forward, the tourists never went home. Now my surfer beach town is "The O.C." and home to the "beautiful people", whatever that means. My grandparents had the very first concession stand on Big Corona beach in Corona del Mar before the big huge brick buildings that stand there now. I remember as a tot running through the surf with my grandpa and grandma always had a treat waiting and then in the evening we would have a huge bonfire in the fire rings which are still there today. This is now what I see in Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. Quiet, warm winters with buzzing spring, fall and summer seasons. If you haven't been to the San Juan's, put it on your bucket list. It's an amazing place which will bring you closer to your true self than you have ever been before.