When did I become “THAT” girl?

I used to love the idea of owning a log cabin, out in the middle of nowhere. Someplace out in the woods, maybe.  With a lazy little stream running through my many acres of property.  And horses!  Gotta have horses!  The thought of peace and quiet, with no other people around except for my family, was totally endearing to me. No phones, to TV, no internet, just communing with nature and each other…now THAT is the life.  Right?

Sam and I took a 3 day vacation for our 9th Wedding Anniversary trip to Orcas Island this past weekend, and we had just that: Peace and quiet, no TV, no internet, no phones, and each other. We LOVED the “each other” part. That was fine.  It was the whole…um…peace and quiet thing that threw us off.  We just weren’t used to all that…time…to do…nothing. In fact, time sort of seemed to slooooowwww ddooowwwnnn on the island.  Our lives are filled with such craziness and chaos (GOOD craziness and chaos, mind you) that not having an agenda was very very odd.  And Orcas Island is a pretty sleepy little town, too, so that made things weirder.

When did I become the “city girl” who thrives on noise and chaos and calendars and phones and internet?

We did, however, love our little cabin, right on the beach.  We stayed at Beach Haven Resort and spent a lot of time in the two person Jacuzzi bath tub. We ate TONS of yummy food, and enjoyed the beautiful scenery.  And we loved having time to just be together, to talk and laugh and hang out together.  Even though it was a little too much rest and relaxation…

Sam, looking thoughtful, on the ferry to the island.

We had fun taking cool scenery photos around the island.  We had amazing weather the whole weekend, even if it was pretty cold!

We even tried our hand at self portraits using the timer on my camera.

This is the view we got to enjoy on our private beach outside our cabin.

Sam was having too much fun doing some shots using long shutter exposure…creepy, eh?

The view from our cabin window:

Our last day on the island, we took a little hike to Cascade Falls on Mt. Constitution.

The next two shots show the difference between a long shutter speed and a short shutter speed.  Sam and I rarely experiment with this sort of thing since we are normally photographing people, but it was fun to play around with it!

The first shot has a really quick shutter speed, which catches all the individual water droplets and makes the photo crisp.

The next shot was taken with a long shutter speed, which makes the waterfall look soft and dreamy.  I love both shots!

I think we did pretty well at our self portrait taking, don’t you?

After hiking to the falls, we drove up to the lookout point at the top of Mt. Constitution, the highest point on the island.  What a great view!

After our hike, it was time to go home, back to civilization.

All in all, it was a really nice little vacation!  And I got to spend three days with the love of my life..although I think next time we will be going someplace a little less “relaxing”!!!