Putting Down Roots

This time we were playing for keeps. 

A year and some months earlier, we had visited Whidbey Island to learn a bit, relax a bit, and then return to South Dakota. It was a recon mission to determine the plausibility of moving there. We gathered information and then went back to prepare for the real deal. It took almost a year longer than we had hoped to get to the island. This time was no drill. 

With our Beverly Hillbillies collection of gear, including one irritated chicken, we were set to homestead. Now, we just needed a place. 

The great land quest began almost immediately. So did the disappointments. The first property we liked was five acres, a good price, and right on highway 525 which would give my future studio great access. It was a blank canvas in many ways. It had been recently clear cut, leaving only stumps and some vegetation and a few leftover trees. It had a hill dividing it into two layers. It really seemed ideal! There was room for my studio near the road with room to expand. There was plenty of room for a house. There was certainly plenty of room for gardens and an orchard to grow our own food.

With more than a bit of excitement we contacted our Realtor, the lovely and talented Christina Parker, to inquire. Alas, our hopes were dashed when we discovered that it was sale pending.

We looked at several other locations that Christina gave us to investigate. As we did, another grabbed our interest. It was only half an acre, much smaller than we had really wanted. However, it was grassy, had fruit trees and bushes already growing on it, a well and septic was in and their was a concrete pad from a previous house already! Though smaller, we could really see ourselves living there. It was also right on 525 with great access for my studio. We checked in with Christina. You guessed it, sale pending. 

Our search continued.

While searching, we also put some focus on exploring and learning the island.

We started in the Langley area where we were camping at the bunny farm, also known as the Island County Fairgrounds!

It's a beautiful fairgrounds with a great country fair feel. Here's a beautiful morning fog we got to wake up to one day. If it's foggy over night or in the morning, it doesn't last very long once the sun comes up.

Most of our time there the campground was almost completely deserted except for the campground host and an very fancy RV being stored next to us. Deserted except for one fun weekend.

Late one evening we heard a vehicle pull in to the campground. We looked to see a small VW camper parked in the next site and a young couple setting up in the dark. We thought little of it that night, only happy that we might have some neighbors.

The sun of the next morning revealed a beautiful teal green camper van and the young occupants. We quickly made friends with Andrew and Cyrena from Seattle! One morning they made a large breakfast to share with us and we enjoyed evenings sitting in the campground talking away! Turned out they had relations in South Dakota also in the form of one former Senator Larry Pressler.

Their visit to our island was short though and Seattle called them back. We hope to see them again soon!

 We experienced the "Welcome the Whales" parade and festival in Langley. Every year there are gray whales that migrate through the area. They make a habit of feeding just off the shore of Langley, the Village by the Sea.

                                  Blown glass art in Langley, WA

We ventured to the middle of the island, to the farthest north point that we really wanted to own land, Greenbank! 

Greenbank farm is a center piece of the area. It hosts many events and is home to Art Galleries and gift shops.  It's truly beautiful there. '

And, of course the beaches. Island county boasts over 200 miles of shoreline and with that comes many public, and even more private, beaches. We quickly found Double Bluff Beach where Carrie and Cody took their first steps ever into the Pacific Ocean.

Along with others, we also found a small county park, Dave MacKie Park, in the unincorporated town of Maxwelton. Maxwelton beach is there, a soft sanded public beach with an outstanding view of the Olympic Mountains across the sound. This quickly became our favorite beach for relaxing, looking for shells and rocks, and just de-stressing with what we came to call Beach Therapy.

Yet, much as we love every aspect of the island, we were not there just to sight see. We were there to put down roots, something still illusive to us. We spent much time looking at a variety of properties. One was nice size, but completely covered in trees and had soil that did not allow for a septic system. Another was also covered in trees, but had access to a community well and good soil. The building codes were a bit restrictive though, and with my need for a studio and our desire to raise chickens... there could have been problems. 

One seemed promising at first, a decent location central to the south end and it had a trailer house on it and a garage too! The price was also very low. With cautious hopes, we pulled up to the spot. Yep, there was a trailer.. and another belonging to the neighbor some 50 feet away. Not exactly the secluded acreage we had hoped for. Yet, we got out to take a look. That was when we discovered the wasps... thousands of them. The roof overhang of the trailer had a Seattle Freeway's worth of wasps flying in and out of the soffit. The only thing missing was "Flight of the Bumblebee" playing in the background.

Not wanting to get too close to the trailer house, we investigated the garage to find it chock full of junk. Not a total disadvantage, but a mess to clean. Walking to the back yard we first noticed a copious number of carpenter ants on the siding of the house and then an old shed that also appeared to be a carpenter ant buffet. 

Strangely, none of this was the complete deal killer. That came in the form of discovering the neighbors in their back yard with their death metal blaring, staring at us. This was capped off with a view of their sticker covered cargo van with the windows painted black. (#abductionvan #heykidswantsomecandy?)

We got back in the Jeep and left.

Already frustrated, we arrived at a time when we had to move. The campgrounds have a policy to only staying for a couple weeks. We had lined up a spot with a local club that had some camping sites. We thought we had all the arrangements made, but apparently we were mistaken. We pulled into the club that shall not be named, and were told that in fact we could not camp there! They were pretty crabby about it too, even though we had verbal confirmation that we could. We started up and left. A pity in a way, we had planned to join the club too! Not so much now.

So, we went with a different plan that wound up working very nicely for us. We decided to spend a couple weeks at Fort Ebey State Park on the northern part of the island. Fort Ebey is a beautiful park with beaches, many trails, and old artillery placements that you can explore.

  

This gave us a chance to explore the middle of the island a bit more, which also has so much to offer. There is the wonderful town of Coupeville for starters.

Coupeville from the wharf

Historic Downtown Coupeville

Coupeville is cute little town with an historic downtown that reminds a bit of Hill City, SD. Everything has a unified era, New England Village, kind of look. It was also the location for the town filming of the movie "Practical Magic". There is a fun range of little shops and a couple restaurants. The historic Wharf is at the end of the street. It has a shop, museum, coffee shop, and restaurant in it. Fun place to visit!

Camping there also put us inside the Ebey's Landing National Historic Reserve. It's a private and public partnership protecting a large part of the island. It's been preserved for farming by the land owners but prevents development into housing. It's part of the National Park System. 

Ebeys' Landing Prairie

This led to an interesting opportunity for Shawn and Cody. Ebey's Reserve held their first annual "Film Slam" this year in honor of the National Park Systems 100th Anniversary. A film slam is a competition where each team was given exactly 50 hours to write, video, edit, and turn in a completed production with certain requirements. You may or may not know, but Shawn and Cody have a YouTube channel called The Dakota Guys. So, they thought what better way to get to know the island than to enter in the contest!

A total of 8 teams entered in the contest. (Only 6 are in the pic) The criteria was that the video had to reflect the National Parks theme of "Find Your Park", it had to be filmed completely within the Reserve and only during the 50 hours. There were also individual, drawn from a hat, requirements. Team Dakota Guys had to include a Block House structure and a beach. A final, last minute wild card requirement that no one could have planned for... everyone had to include a duck. It could be the word, someone saying duck, a live duck... anything as long as duck was somehow in the video.

So, with our task clearly defined, we chose to create a traditional Dakota Guys video about the Reserve. Here it is! (make sure you watch through the end credits)

We had a great time making the video. More on that in a bit.

While exploring the middle of beautiful Whidbey Island, we found more properties to inquire about. One was simply astronomically expensive once we found the price. Another was a great price, it was right on the main highway, it had the possibility of a bit of a view and it was about 5 acres. It seemed great. It had a downfall, it was less than one mile from the end of the Navy’s Out Lying Field, a small runway that Naval Air Station Whidbey Island uses for touch and go and aircraft carrier landing practice.

A U.S. Navy Boeing EA-18G Growler of test and evaluation squadron VX-31 flies over the city of Ridgecrest, California (USA)   Public Domain photo Date:July 2009  Source:U.S. Navy Naval Air Warfare Center, Weapons Division (NAWCWD) [1]photo [2]AuthorU.S. Navy photo by Cmdr. Ian C. Anderson, USN

The base, on the north end of the island at Oak Harbor, is home to a variety of aircraft including the EA-18G Growler. This is the same basic aircraft as the F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter jet. It’s an amazing aircraft that we’re proud to have on the island. It’s also a very loud aircraft. Still, they don’t use the field every week so the noise would only be occasional. Coming to terms with this, we investigated. Yes, the price was good but there was another catch. A Homeowners covenant on the land, and a pretty restrictive one at that. There was restriction of no commercial use, thus an art gallery and studio was out for me. There were restrictions on how tall your house could be, etc. Keep in mind, there were no other houses there, no view to block, and right on a noisy highway and under a noisy flight line. We chose to pass, and as of this writing so has everyone else.

Our time at Ebey’s Landing State Park ran out, another time restriction, so we packed up and departed for the north end of the island and a city campground in Oak Harbor.

Now Oak Harbor is a decent town. It the home of NAS Whidbey Island as I mentioned before.  It has a population of just over 22,000 people, so it’s not huge but it has many amenities. All the main staples that we have in Sioux Falls are found right here. There is Walmart, two major grocery store chains, McDonalds, Taco Bell (yay!), Home Depot, Applebee’s, Tractor Supply Company, and much to Cody’s joy a Game Stop! Oh, and surprise surprise, they have a Starbucks.

This is the same town we spent our first night in but hadn’t had much opportunity to explore the area much. So, we tried to spend some of our time doing just that.

Deception Pass Bridge

Our explorations led us farther north too as we made a fast visit to Deception Pass State Park and crossed the Deception Pass bridge to Fidalgo Island and the city of Anacortes! In particular, there was a marine surplus store we wanted to visit. Marine Supply & Hardware is a delightful store full of collectible and usable marine hardware. It also had an employee who, it turns out, grew up in Sioux Falls! It was a fun afternoon for Shawn especially as this gentleman had also worked in radio like Shawn had. Turned out they knew many of the same people or had at least known of others in common.

The research vessel Sally Ride in dry dock in Anacortes!

Yet, as much as we wanted to explore we even more wanted a place to call home.

Seeing that the larger properties were just not working out, Shawn and Carrie started looking at the smaller properties. One stood out for its already installed well share access and and its existing septic system. These are expensive items to install, very expensive items. The price was higher than they wanted, but having these utilities already in balanced the price.

So, Shawn and Carrie talked to Christina and went to look at the property. It had an existing single wide trailer house. It was in pretty rough condition but someone was living in it. It had potential for at least temporary housing. It was around ¾ of an acre on a hill top at 300 feet above sea level. (no tsunami worries). It had large grassy areas and even better, a number of established fruit trees. On top of that, the end of the driveway was only one mile from their favorite beach in Maxwelton! In short, they liked it.

So an offer was made and an offer was accepted!

Now there was the vacate allowance, the amount of time the resident had before we could take possession. We had to allow time, it was only fair.

However, a new fly found it’s way into the ointment. A large one.

Sharon had gone in for a checkup on a slightly enlarged aorta that had been found the previous year. Through a series of rather miraculous, and I don’t use that word loosely, events, it was found that not only had the enlargement gotten bigger but there was something in one of her kidneys. Sharon had cancer.

Through consultations and discussions over the phone, the decision was made to remove the infected kidney all together and to repair the aorta. The passage to the heart was done first. They wanted to make sure her heart was getting a proper supply of blood before the more invasive kidney surgery.

In the mean time, We had moved back to the Langley Fair grounds to be closer to the land we would be moving on to. The fair grounds were mostly deserted except for the campground host and one little camper across the compound.

We didn’t see much of the occupants, except for a couple of little boys. One in particular had a huge attraction to our chicken, Eggbert. He wound up in our campsite many times in order to visit the old hen. His slightly older brother would come around some too and their turned out to be another brother who was a bit older yet. All were younger than Cody. Though we didn’t see her much, we learned latter that this was a family consisting of a single mother and her three boys trying to make a new life on Whidbey Island. The island had drawn in another family like so many before... like us.

Sharon’s first surgery went well. With Shawn on the island, long time family friend Marge Miller took Sharon to the hospital and stayed with her until she could go home. Her assistance was invaluable to Sharon, and Shawn too. It was so comforting to know that she was taken care of and not alone. Thank you Marge!!

Shawn's last night on the island for awhile. Spent at Cozy's

restaurant for some good food and pool. Cozy's is one of our very

favorite places to eat and relax on the island.

As Sharon recovered from that surgery, she prepared for the next and Shawn prepared to travel to Sioux Falls to help her through the big one. The day arrived and Carrie and Cody took Shawn to where a shuttle bus would take him from the island all the way to the SeaTac airport south of Seattle.

It was a cool morning with many others gathered waiting for the bus. There were people alone and people with families. Conversations filled the air along with some tears for loved ones departing. Little was said in the Jeep. The weight of Sharons surgery was on Shawn as was his parting from Carrie and Cody. There was something else, but he couldn’t put his finger on it then.

The small bus pulled up and it’s passengers gathered around. Shawn, Carrie, and Cody got out of the Jeep and walked together to the bus. Shawn hugged Cody, they exchanged I love you’s. Shawn hugged Carrie. He didn’t want to let go, he didn’t want to leave. They told each other of their love. They kissed. Carrie said, “get on the bus. Don’t look back or I’ll cry.” He kissed her a last time, touched her face, and turned to go. He didn’t look back. How could he know the future? Would he have done anything, said anything different?

On the Clinton to Mukilteo Ferry. Shuttle bus behind.

 Art at SeaTac, the Seattle-Tacoma Airport.

Shawn waiting to board his Delta Airlines flight.

The trip to Sioux Falls was long but smooth. Shawn left the island the way he came, aboard the ferry to Mukilteo. His flight went to Minneapolis, then to Sioux Falls and the house he had lived in since December of 1980.

Sharon was delighted to see him, as you can imagine. In the coming days she would have her kidney removed. The surgery was a complete success and all the cancer was taken out with it.

Back on the island Carrie had gotten to know the young mother in the camper. Hahna was camping there, waiting for the time to move on to a small farm on the island where she was going to live and work.

It also came time for the Ebey’s Landing Film Slam. This was the film festival event for the contest that Team Dakota Guys had entered. It was a gala event with a red carpet entry, a meet and greet with the film producers and then finally the screening of each video. The moment arrived at the end of the night. They announced the Peoples Choice winner which was voted on by those in attendance. It was a very artistic and creative video about an alien crash landing on the island.

Then it was time to announce the Judges Choice Winner. A panel of judges had been selected to evaluate each video on a series of criteria including how well it promoted Ebey’s Landing National Historic Reserve, how well the required elements were included, and of course production quality. Carrie and Cody were in attendance, sending text messages to an anxious Shawn throughout. The moment came… the Judges Choice Award winner is… Team Dakota Guys!!!

Yes indeed, our little video above was the winner. We were very honored to be selected by the Judges as the winner! It was such a fun event to be part of. We look forward to doing it again next year.

So, we ended with purchased land we were waiting to take possession of, Sharon’s surgeries were a great success, and Team Dakota Guys won Judges Choice in the first ever Ebey’s Landing Film Slam! Everything seemed to be going just great!

Shawn felt something coming.