“No time for losers ‘cause we are the champions, of the world”

Freddy Mercury’s anthem couldn’t be more apt.  The mighty Volunteers vanquished the city boys pretending to be cowboys pretending to be soldiers and their cringy “yell leaders” to secure Tennessee’s first baseball National Championship.  Crazy awesome.  And all the people in the little chapel said “Amen.”

Now back to Roche Harbor.  This post is limited to Roche Harbor because tomorrow we’re crossing the border into the Great White North again, although oddly we’re heading south to do it.  Canada deserves its own posts.  Plus, Roche Harbor is cool enough to be singled out.

Remember the Pig War?  During those twelve years when the British and the Americans were waiting on opposite ends of San Juan Island for battle orders, the Limeys decided to build a great lime production operation at Roche Harbor to prevent scurvy and to facilitate their heavy margarita consumption.  What?  That’s a different kind of lime?  Well at least that explains the kilns.

Lime production here continued after the Americans took over and continued basically until 1956, by which time all the trees needed to fuel the furnaces were gone.  So Roche Harbor became a fabulous resort community instead.

The Hotel de Haro—built in 1886 by the dude who started the Tacoma and Roche Harbor Lime Company—is the resort centerpiece.  There’s a roche motel joke in there someplace but we’re too fond of this place to work it out.

The San Juan Islands Sculpture Park up by the airstrip “is home to over 150 unique creations by emerging and world-renowned sculptors.”  It indeed is pretty neat.

We’re guessing that the guy who made the piece on the left has had “beep, beep” running through his head ever since.

The park is soliciting names for the thing with the open jaws if anyone has a good idea.

This is “Soundhenge,” which would be a great place to insert the relevant reference to This is Spinal Tap if we hadn’t already used it on the sundial henge we found in Burlington, Vermont.

These are fake sheep.

These are not fake sheep.  These are hay bales we passed on what turned out to be a seven-mile loop out to English Camp, which was necessary because we zoomed past it on our previous adventure.

The English Camp visitor center isn’t quite as posh as the one at American Camp, but there still are structures and a formal garden to visit.  The British clearly took more pride in their compound than did the Yanks, who basically lived in squalor.

Exhausted though we were, somehow we made it back.

By the way, that chapel on the hill at Roche Harbor—dating to 1887—is dedicated to Our Lady of Good Voyage.  By biblical reckoning, Mary died some 2,000 years ago.  It’s hard to understand how she gets all these obligations placed on her now.  Who even knows?  Maybe she once had a near-death experience with some Florida jackass on a Viking Sportfish in an ICW no-wake zone and thereafter hated all things boats and boaters.  Also, isn’t Christopher the patron saint of traveling and travelers?  Does that double the protection of voyagers?  Or do they cancel each other out?  Very confusing.  But the chapel is cute enough, and will hold 80 wedding guests if rain drives the blessed event out of the garden.

Turns out Roche Harbor is quite the wedding machine.  Every day, another wedding.  Which means every day, another wedding reception band playing the same songs a hundred yards from Tumbleweed.  We have no idea why they all insist on the bastardized Chris Stapleton version of “Tennessee Whiskey” rather than the classic original David Allen Coe version later made famous by The Possum, but it’s abominable.  Anyway, one lucky couple made their escape in cute li’l June Bug.  We didn’t get to watch the departure so can’t verify where their prankster friends tied the tin cans.

“Hey, what’s that sound?  Everybody look what’s going down.”  Stephen Stills may have been talking about guns and war, but the delightful and familiar “pop, pop, pop” from shore sounded to us a lot like pickleball, so we dug out our shoes and paddles and wandered over.  Nice folks.  Big fun, but “Don’t hit it hard at Betty.  She doesn’t like it when you do that.”

Speaking of Burlington, Vermont, remember the fancy mausoleum where Chuck and Jann Perkins will rest when they finally pass on?  They’ve got nothing on Old Man John McMillin—the aforementioned rich dude who owned the lime company that made him rich—and the mausoleum where he and his family are interred.   Apparently the edifice is full of Masonic symbolism.  The columns, for example, supposedly duplicate those in King Solomon’s Temple.  Frankly we find this claim a bit sketchy because (1) there are no extant blueprints or as-builts from 1,000 BCE, and (2) nobody knows the precise length of a “cubit.”  Maybe he channeled the Widow’s Son.  It’s impressive either way, however, and either way the halibut and sole at McMillin’s Dining Room was delicious.

Every night at 9, the Roche Harbor staff “Retire the Colors” with great fanfare.  “O Canada” when lowering the Maple Leaf.  The recently-modified “God Save the King” when lowering the Union Jack.  “To the Colors” when Old Glory comes down, followed by “Taps” and congratulations to guests who just got married or divorced or are celebrating something else.  And a cannon blast that makes Sammy jump every time.  Stirring.

Yup, Roche Harbor is fantastic.  Very high up on the list of coolest places we’ve visited, by boat or otherwise.

No animated cruising map this post, because, well, we didn’t go anywhere.

Note:  Our friend Bill—an illogically-proud Kentuckian and long-time blog follower—advised us that Desmond Doss actually was a member of the 77th Infantry.  Bill should know, since his father was in the 96th.  We’ve made the appropriate correction to the last post.  The sheer verticality of our hike up to Cascade Lake, however, remains entirely factual.