Lolling in the shadows of a tree and reading a good book is a fine way to let your picnic lunch digest at Fisherman Bay Preserve on Lopez Island.

WE CAN SEE LOPEZ ISLAND from The Nuthatch cabin, and when we get island fever, we go visit.

A picnic lunch is often involved.

Lately, we’ve returned more than once to a perfect picnic spot with a view of the entrance of Fisherman Bay, with Lopez Village on the far shore. It’s an old farm site, with only the rock fireplace and chimney surviving from the farmhouse, plus a few ancient apple trees and a lovely wide swath of meadow that slopes down to the water. The property is a San Juan County Land Bank site called Fisherman Bay Preserve — The Spit. That’s all I’m telling; beyond that, you’ll have to find it on your own.

Perfect picnic spots are supposed to be hard to find.

Barbara passes the old farmhouse site as she carries a crusty baguette from Holly B’s Bakery, one of our favorite haunts in Lopez Village.

Wild bushes of Nootka rose surround our picnic site, with their sweet aroma pungent on the breezes. Come visit, and we’ll take you there.

 

Walk-on passengers get ready to board a state ferry in Friday Harbor. Between islands, walk-ons need no ticket, we’ve learned.

THIS WEEK WE DISCOVERED a good trick to know if you live on a remote island: how to play tourist without it costing more than a trifling bit of gas money (to get there, anyway).

We visited Friday Harbor, the San Juan Islands’ most popular tourist town, had lunch with a friend, did a little shopping, and got back home in time for dinner, letting someone else do most of the piloting.

Here’s how it works:

We take our boat, the WeLike, from Center Island to the Hunter Bay public dock on Lopez Island, just a couple miles across the water, and tie up for the day. From there we take our stored pickup truck, known as Ranger Rick (yes, it’s a Ford Ranger), to the Lopez Island ferry dock and park it in the free day-parking lot. Then we walk aboard the Friday Harbor-bound state ferry for the hour-long ride, with stops at pretty Shaw and Orcas islands.

A nice view of Orcas Island’s Turtleback Mountain (with the turtle head on the left), as seen from the state ferry.

What we didn’t realize before: Washington State Ferries doesn’t charge walk-on passengers traveling from one island to another in the San Juans. It’s not worth their trouble, I guess. So “ha, ha,” say we! Now’s our chance to get back all the ferry fares we paid over the years, like when we lived in Bremerton and worked in Seattle.

And because Friday Harbor is quite walkable, you don’t need a car. Or if you wish to see more of the island, you can hop on one of two island shuttles, and have lunch in Roche Harbor. Or go crazy and rent a moped (maybe next time).

It beats taking our own boat that far and having to find (and pay for) dock space. We’re retired folk, you know. Squeezing pennies until Abe screams is becoming a finely honed new talent.

It’s still the islands’ quiet season, as this view from the ferry’s stern testifies, with nary another vessel in sight.

 

 

As more skyscrapers rise, the rest of Manhattan doesn’t look so far below anymore, from the observation deck of the Empire State Building.

FROM 35,000 FEET OVER MONTANA – We island-dwelling hermits re-earned our merit badges as urban navigators this morning, departing on foot from our hotel on New York’s Upper West Side at 5:30, when the only other people on the Broadway sidewalks were a few guys washing down shopfronts with garden hoses and one early-rising hot-dog vendor just starting to get his relish, mustard and ketchup organized for the day.

From 79^th Street, we made our way south on the No. 1 subway to Penn Station, then caught the commuter train to Newark Liberty International Airport, transferred to the airport tram, and sat down to wait at our Alaska Airlines gate by 7:30 a.m., each with a cup in hand of the hot, brown, taste-free liquid that masquerades as coffee in New Jersey. A whole hour to spare before boarding our flight home to Seattle, and we didn’t have to ask directions once.

We’d seen a lot the previous day, on our final full day in the big city. Best choice we made: Going to the top of the Empire State Building (Barbara’s first time) at 9 in the morning, just as the sun was burning away morning clouds. No lines for the elevator at that hour. And the golden morning light was still good for photos. Barbara and Lillian got a kick out of looking down at rooftop gardens on buildings all around us. I got a kick out of checking my watch to see how quickly the elevator rocketed upward (79 stories in less than an ear-popping minute).

Lillian and I explore the High Line, a former above-the-street rail line preserved with lovely plantings and outdoor art, near the Hudson River shore west of the Empire State Building.

The next adventure on the agenda Lil had set out for us was a trek on the High Line, the former elevated rail line – now an above-the-streets walking path — that has become a major hit with residents and visitors alike. The 22-block walk retains many of the old train tracks and ties, lined with public art and lovely plantings of forget-me-nots, hellebores and more. We found a private bench among leafy trees and picnicked on salads and olives from Zabar’s deli, with blooming trilliums at our feet. Delightful, and unexpected.

Late that afternoon, we finished our day with a tour of the T-Rex special exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History on the edge of Central Park. It was one of the better interactive exhibitions I’ve seen about the king of lizards. Lil and I had fun playing with a sound mixer that let us experiment with what the dinosaur’s roar might have sounded like (we blended bits of sea lion, some bison bellows, crocodile grunts, and even some loon laughs — the dinos were related to birds, after all). We also got a kick out of a virtual-reality set-up that had us donning goggles and manipulating handsets to help “assemble” a T-Rex skeleton, which then came to life before our goggled eyes and gave us a few good thrills and chills. (I had to duck when it tried to bite my head off.)

Twenty-seven-year-old Lillian measures up to a four-year-old T-Rex at the American Museum of Natural History.

After a delicious dinner of gourmet tacos at Cafe Frida, Barbara chose to put her feet up back at the hotel while Lil and I strolled through blooming gardens of bleeding heart and fragrant azalea among the rocky landscapes of Manhattan’s Riverside Park. As we watched the sun set over the Hudson, where sailboats bobbed at moorings, it was a happy conclusion to an urban adventure on an island very different from our own.

Ridiculously tall new skyscrapers tower over New York’s Central Park, where model sailboats take a more modest scale.

MY DAUGHTER HAS ALWAYS LOVED SAILING but little did she know it could be so much fun on a pond in New York’s Central Park — when the boat is radio-controlled and not much bigger than a skateboard.

I could hardly tear Lillian away from the controls as our half-hour rental wound down.

We weren’t sure we’d be able to sail at all; the pond was wind-free as we arrived shortly before the rental operation’s 11 a.m. opening. But at 10:55, a ripple broke the mirror-like calm that reflected some of the ridiculously tall and skinny skyscrapers that are now being constructed in Manhattan. We took the controls of Sailboat 800 (we renamed it the Rosabella, after a favorite sea chantey) and enjoyed piloting the boat all over the pond.

A classic yacht carries sightseers past the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.

Later in the day we watched a lifesize sailboat — carrying tourists — skimming a bigger body of water as it passed the Statue of Liberty and nearby Ellis Island. From Battery Park at the south tip of Manhattan, we enjoyed the spectacle of tour boats weaving in and out among these iconic landmarks of American immigration. Barbara recalled that her grandmother from Hungary came through Ellis Island as a young woman of 19, determined to make a life here.

No walls kept her out. It wasn’t always smooth sailing, but her family made a good life here, thanks to a nation that at that time took that statue’s symbolism to heart.

 

Don’t get this guy mad: The 30-foot animatronic gorilla puppet called Kong had an amazing number of facial expressions, but his vocabulary mostly consisted of roars like a T-Rex. In front, the puppeteers who made him move take a bow in the glare of the footlights.

I’M CALLING IT “urban immersion therapy,” and our five days in New York City are definitely a change from spending the winter on Center Island.

It’s good to shake things up now and then.

My family and I definitely got a good shaking (from sound waves) on Sunday when we went to see the Broadway musical version of “King Kong.”

We considered catching a more intellectual show, but daughter Lillian convinced us when she posed the question, “How can you pass up a 30-foot-tall animatronic gorilla puppet?”

Especially one that, when riled, beats his chest and roars like the T-Rex from Jurassic Park? (See a YouTube “trailer” here.) It’s just about enough to blow you out of your seat.

The matinee was a great way to spend a rainy Sunday in Manhattan. And Monday, when the sun shone beautifully, we sailed a model boat in Central Park and went to see the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge. More on that to come, with further reports from Gotham City.