Customs inspection started at 9am for a 10:30am ferry departure from Victoria bound for Port Angeles. We were 10th in the standby line and among the last six cars to make it on board. Our journey today to the eastern slopes of the Cascades Mountain Range took us across Puget Sound on our fifth ferry ride in as many days. From the water we could see the Seattle skyline in front of the distant but enormous Mount Rainier.

We arrived late in the afternoon at Lake Wenatchee where we will spend the next two nights with great friends Cindy and Rob Shurtleff and their friend Ann. Cindy and I first met while I was attending Stanford and we have stayed in touch over the years. Rob is a venture capitalist in the high tech sector with whom I share a great many interests.

A delicious meal was followed by what Jeanine described as a sunset champagne cruise around the lake. Lake Wenatchee is glacier and snowmelt fed with the North Shore and South Shore state parks, separated by the Wenatchee River. The lake covers 2,480 acres and reaches a depth of 244 feet. The Shurtleff lake house has many attributes that Jeanine and I can see in our post-empty nest home and we thoroughly enjoyed the ambiance during our stay.