Summer with the Sampson's

How we spent our summer vacation…

We have been a little lazy when it comes to keeping our blog up to date. It’s been a busy summer and we’ve tried to make the most of it and we’ve kept pretty busy. Lisa has been working hard at Eddie Bauer getting her store whipped into shape and doing a great job. She is regularly praised by her corporate office for all of her efforts. I have been working equally hard at Heath Northwest. Our sales are improving and I added another salesperson to our staff.

Labor Day weekend we decided to take our boat up to the San Juan Islands. Lisa and Melissa had to work, so the boys and I headed out early Saturday morning for Anacortes where we launched the boat.


How we spent our summer vacation…

Once on the water we headed northwest on a heading through Thatcher’s Pass on a course to Jones Island, a small state park where we planned to spend the night. It took us about an hour to get there and once we arrived we were able to tie onto one of the anchoring buoys there. We made lunch and then took the dingy over to the beach and hiked around. Jones Island is really nice and offers some great hiking. We camped there back in 1996 and 1998 with our old boat. We went back to the boat in the afternoon and made dinner and Skyler and Alex fished off the back of the boat. Sky caught a flounder! I think this was his first fish he has ever caught on his own! He was thrilled and I think it’s made him a life long fisherman.









After it got dark we rolled our sleeping bags and down went to bed for the night. Sunday morning we awoke to the sound of light ripple on the water lapping on the hull of the boat. I got up and started preparations for breakfast, scrambled eggs, sausage and orange Juice while the boys slept in a little. It was a beautiful morning and the water was calm as glass. Skyler, Alex and I spent the rest of the morning hiking on the island and rock climbing along the beach.

Then at about noon we went back to the boat and made lunch. Right after lunch we untied the boat from the anchor buoy and headed over to Orcas Island to top off the fuel tank for our next waypoint, Sucia Island, then we made a heading northeast for about a 18 mile boat ride to Sucia . We arrived at Sucia Island in only about a half hour and began scouting for a place to anchor. We were surprised by how many boats were there. I’d say Sucia Island is probably one of the most popular islands in the San Juan Islands for camping. It’s also a state park. On this island there are a lot of camp sites, lots of hiking trails, and also fossils and caves. We circled the island and decided to anchor in Shallow Bay, on the northwest side of the island.

We rowed the dingy ashore and hiked a trail that took us to what was called China Caves, a sand stone rock formation with some really interesting erosion patterns. Most interesting though are the caves in the sandstone that were apparently eroded by wind, water and animals. Legend has it that smugglers bringing in illegal Chinese immigrants hid them in these caves from immigration officials in the late 1800’s, hence the name. We rock climbed on these rock formations and Alex and I went really far up the cliff, so far that he got a little spooked and was unable to get back down without some help from Dad.







After hiking on the island for another hour or so we went back to the boat for dinner. When we got back to the boat we were a little surprised to find that we had drug our anchor a ways getting really close to another boat anchored close by. We pull up anchor and moved over to another spot in the bay where I dropped two anchors to make sure we’d stay put for the night. The sunset from Shallow bay was spectacular!



I had checked the tide charts and thought we’d be fine in the 14 feet or so of water that the depth finder said we had under the boat. But I woke up at about 3:30 in the morning, about 45 minutes before low tide, only to find that we only had 5 feet of water under the boat! I could see the bottom very clearly. Our anchors held tight, but we were getting really close to the bottom. Kyle woke up and came out to see what was going on and we both sat up until absolute low tide to make sure we didn’t hit bottom. At the lowest point we only had 4 feet of depth! I guess that’s why they call it Shallow Bay. Duh! Kyle and I went back to sleep and slept until about 7:30 when we all got up and made breakfast. We wanted to get back to Anacortes early before every one else in their rush to get back home from the holiday weekend, so we pulled up our anchors and set our course south for home. The water was like glass and perfect for cruising at speed I was able to even go full throttle for a while which got us back to Skyline Marina in Anacortes in short order where we had their hoist take our boat out of the water and set it on it’s trailer and headed for home, only about an hour and a half drive. Traffic was light and we were able to get away for the Labor Day weekend and back home without hassling with any of the holiday traffic. Everyone had a good time and it was really nice for dad to be able to spend some quality time with his boys!






8/18/07
Lisa, Alex, Skyler and I loaded up the racecar on the trailer and headed south to Portland to race at Portland International Raceway. Read more on my racing blog….
http://stevesampson.blogspot.com/


August 4th – 11th.

On August 4th Lisa and I took a trip to Cabo San Lucas to celebrate our 22nd wedding anniversary. Rick and Marie offered us the use of their time share there at the Sol Mar Suites, and it was a spectacular week! Lisa and I spent our time there walking on the beach, sitting poolside sunbathing and swimming, exploring around town, shopping, eating at some of the restaurants around town, sleeping a lot, getting tatoos (henna), jet skiing, etc. We took a sunset cruise that was awesome! We jet skied right through the “Los Archos” rock formations right at the tip of Baja. That was incredible! One day we just stayed in bed all day and didn’t get up until it was time for dinner. We’ve had a tough year and we felt like we deserved the rest. Our hotel was right on the beach on the Pacific side. We could walk down the beach a short way and hike over the boulders to a secluded and pristine beach they call Lovers Beach that’s normally only accessible by boat. But for the determined, the hike over the boulders made it all the more rewarding experience.

We took lots of pictures of the beautiful scenery there. The beaches were spectacular and awe inspiring. The weather the whole time was very hot. As we landed in Cabo the pilot came on the intercom and said the temperature was 100 degrees! It stayed in the upper 90’s for our entire stay, but our hotel room had great air conditioning that made the heat much more bearable. We haven’t had many vacations without the kids tagging along and this one was very special for us and time that we both needed together to recharge our batteries and refresh our marriage. Of course the time went by much too quickly and soon it was time to catch our shuttle back to the airport Saturday morning for our flight back home where, unfortunately, we had to contend with Mexican airport official disorganization. But after 11 hours in the airport and in the air we finally made it home safely.