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Life in a Tourist Destination during the Off Season

Shannon Page
4 min readDec 28, 2018

Welcome to the island! This is the best time of year, seriously, it’s amazing here now. Not crowded. Really, not crowded AT ALL. I drove into town today to run a few errands. Darn it, I thought as I pulled into the entirely empty bank parking lot. I didn’t know the bank was closed today.

Reader, the bank was not closed today. The tellers were SO HAPPY to see me. I think my little deposit was the highlight of their day.

Have a seat by our lovely pond! Can I bring you a cold drink? (photo by me)

And the weather’s so great right now! It hasn’t even snowed yet. I had to dig back in my phone to find a photo from last winter to illustrate this article.

Now that the solstice is past, the days are getting longer. Sunset today was at 4:21 pm! Not that I saw the sun. But I know it was out there, behind the clouds, somewhere.

My other errand in town was the grocery store. I ran into a woman from my book group, two neighbors, and the entire cast from the most recent community theatre production. Okay, I’m exaggerating; but the fact is, there’s no dashing out to the store in your PJs around here. Five thousand people live on the island year-round, and I swear I know half of them; and I further swear that at least half of those people are poised in strategic locations all over town, waiting to see if I bothered to put a bra on and drag a comb through my hair before I…

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Shannon Page
Shannon Page

Written by Shannon Page

Writer, editor, thinker of things, living on Orcas Island, Washington state. https://www.shannonpage.net

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