A Quick Trip to the Boat

Guess what? We’re going to be in the Airstream for a WHOLE WEEK this month! The last time we were Airstreaming it was October 2015! That’s nuts, isn’t it? (We really REALLY like boating.) Anyway, we realized that our cool internet setup was still up at the boat, so we decided to drive up to get it so we’d have good internet for the week at the Oregon Coast this month, because…well, work, duh.

As we were heading out of Portland, I got a cool view of the water tower on top of the old Towne Storage building as we sat in traffic at a stoplight. The Towne Storage building is such a neat old building and when I first moved to Portland to go to art school I dreamed of one day having a grungy brick-walled studio in this building. Since then (I had a different grungy brick walled studio in a different part of town) I’ve had many artist friends with studios in this building and it’s sad to see it changing, but at least it’s not being torn town, right?

Anyway, we’ve had kind of a tough couple weeks, so we figured we’d keep the trip up a quick one, but rather than drive up and back in one day, we’d spend a night or two on the boat before returning to Portland.

We left Portland late on Thursday and didn’t get up to Anacortes until almost 10pm. We were hungry on the way, and I found (via Yelp) a Mexican food spot not to far off of I-5 in Centralia that sounded killer from the reviews. It’s called La Tarasca, and it was amazing! (Fun fact: the restaurant is totally gluten-free.)

Great food, super friendly service, happy/chill atmosphere…so good. We ordered the carnitas plate (their specialty, and it’s obvious why), and the steak taco plate. The tortillas are homemade and delicious. Their homemade salsa is very good as well, and is served with pickled carrot slices…no tortilla chips (which is actually a nice change…neither of us felt overly full when we’d finished our meal). We shared plates, and Kevin said it was a toss up to him as to what he liked best, but I’d have a hard time ordering anything but the carnitas next time. We took two pork tamales to go and steamed them up for lunch the next day and they were fantastic also. Anyway, highly recommended stop if you’re hungry in or near Centralia.

On Friday morning once the wind calmed down, we cruised over to a nice protected anchorage off of Orcas Island, near Double Island. There was no one out there but the occasional crab boat picking up pots. Friday was calm and gray and rainy and SO nice to have a little quiet boat time.

Double Island on the left, Alegria Island on the right:

For last night’s dinner I made prawn tacos with a lime cilantro slaw, loosely based on this recipe. They came out great!