King Oscar and the lighthouse

If you've lived around the Puget Sound for any length of time, you know about The Gray.

It has other names, of course. The Gloomy Season. The Big Dark. The Drizzle. Or, as they say in a particular movie, "It rains nine months of the year in Seattle." The constant overcast and light-to-heavy rainfall, combined with our location above the 45th Parallel, means that from November to March the Puget Sound skies are almost unrelentingly dark, foggy, or both. If you don't already have Seasonal Affective Disorder, you'll start to develop a touch of it in midwinter. You need to develop strategies to fight The Gray or it will overwhelm you and shut you down.

Now if this were a normal time, I'd fight The Gray by being with people. I'd visit family and friends. I'd go to Bremerton's nerd pubs and play pinball or cabinet video games. I'd strike up conversations with friendly strangers in the library. I'd gather with local geeks to play board games. I'd go to storytelling nights and hear about people's adventures from their own mouths. I'd meet people and I'd make friends.

But this is not a normal time.

I don't want to get sick. I don't want to make other people sick. I can't be successfully frugal AND spend much time with local friends, since it takes time and money to visit our old stomping grounds on the Eastside. And with a couple of rare exceptions, I haven't gotten out enough to meet any new people around here. I've been strongly isolated. And isolation is no way to fight The Gray.

What to do?

Well, if you're me, which I am, you knit and crochet while listening to back episodes of The Magnus Archives, putter around the house, cook, read library books, spend way too much time bingeing YouTube videos. And when you tire of that, you go troll hunting.

Today, since Captain Midnight was determined to DM some D&D deeds of derring-do, I was on my own for the afternoon. The Gray was lowering and unrelenting, but it was not a day to stay in. So I stole CM's jacket, gathered up the usual bundle of accoutrements (vitamins, water bottle, hot chocolatey goodness) and made for the ferry to Vashon Island.

You might not consider Vashon a prime spot to hunt for trolls, and ordinarily I'd agree with you. It's a fine place to find aging hippies, bike-eating trees, and (if rumor is correct) several ferocious local strains of cannabis, but until recently the only certain locale for Scandinavian cryptids was under the Aurora Avenue bridge in Seattle.

And then Thomas Dambo and crew came along and shook things up. But we'll get to that in a bit.

It usually takes a while to drive from our current digs to the Southworth ferry dock in Port Orchard. It usually takes even longer for the Southworth/Vashon/Fauntleroy ferry to show up -- so much so that on the rare occasions when I've used it to get back to Kitsap from Seattle, I end up waiting so long that I'd have made better time just driving around Tacoma and up the peninsula. CM and I usually refer to it as "the cursed ferry." So to my great delight, I didn't have to wait more than 10 minutes for the cursed ferry to arrive at Southworth Dock. And it didn't take another 10 minutes to make the crossing from there to Vashon.

Despite the gloominess of the day, I enjoyed my first look at Vashon Island. I couldn't live there, as there's no hospital or even a basic medical clinic, and everything has to reach the island by boat or helicopter. But it has a remarkable number of creative people per capita, and it's beautiful.

I drove merrily through the cute little downtown area, took a turn to the left and continued to follow driving directions for... far longer than I'd expected. How long should it take to reach any spot on an island of 37 square miles? As the roadway narrowed and twisted, I pulled over and sent a quick text to my siblings: "This place is in the middle of nowhere. IF I SHOULD FALL, TELL MY STORY"

Just then, though, the end hove in sight: the upper parking lot of the Point Robinson Lighthouse. 'Bout time.

(BTW, if you're new to troll hunting, look around for clusters of painted birdhouses like these. They're a sure sign that trolls are nearby.)

Since I'd never been to Point Robinson before, I was also curious about the lighthouse. And at the time it seemed like a lot of people were paying homage to King Oscar. So I thought I'd just pop down and see the lighthouse first.

This turned out to be a mistake. Not the seeing-the-lighthouse part, the taking-this-route part. I headed down a forest trail that quickly became slick with mud and crud and slippery fallen leaves, and there were no handrails to cling to. Frankly, it's a minor miracle that I didn't slip and fall on my butt, BUT(t) somehow I SLOWLY worked my way down, walking like a little granny, and made it to the end of the path relatively unscathed (though it's a good thing my shoes were designed to be laundered).

And here's what I found!

Let's take a closer look, shall we?

Ah yes indeed, very nice. 

No official tours until Mother's Day, more's the pity. But we're good at showing ourselves around the place.

After taking a few more attractive foties...

...I decided to head back. Though by this time I'd figured out there was another route up to the parking lot, so I didn't have to run the mud gauntlet again. Which is good, because I don't think my shoes could've taken it.

Lessee, what was I doing here again? Oh yeah.

In a circular clearing not too far away... there was King Oscar holding court, surrounded by birdhouse clusters on poles. And a lot of fans.

If you're curious to know more about him, there's a helpful plaque nearby that goes into more detail about Oscar and about Thomas Dambo, the Danish artist who created him (and other trolls) out of local scrap wood.

Like most wise rulers, Oscar's staying off his feet today.

He looks so much more handsome in person than he does on the sardine cans. Also I like his birdhouse crown. Very chic.

Someone had used a few local clams to give him a fabulous pedicure. As you do.

I handed my phone to an innocent bystander and proceeded to commune with the King.

Now we're officially BFFs. If you can't be a king, it's at least nice to know one.

I wasn't through exploring yet, though.

Not far from the King's court was this mysterious object.

Other than possibly being some kind of cryptic municipal art, I have no idea what it was.

If you know, do clue me in, won't you? I'm most curious.

And then I ran off and took goofy selfies in front of a mural because I could.

Anyway, that's one way to fight The Gray. And it worked pretty well if I do say so myself!