Anyone that stumbles on the quaint coastal town of Shelter Bay might call it sleepy. They may even mistake it for a place where nothing much happens.
Perhaps that's because it's a tight-knit community full of happy families and local businesses go...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Breaking promises made me anxious. Especially when those promises included baking cookies for your friend's adorably feisty six-year-old son. To make matters worse, it was for Collin's end-of-the-year elementary school bake sale.
Well, just because my landlady stood me up didn't mean I was going to break a pinky promise.
Poor Monica was working extra shifts at The Brick to cover her recent rent hike, so my friend didn't have time to make cookies. And it wasn't like her deadbeat ex-boyfriend was going to lift a finger when she could barely count on him for child support.
At least I'd gone to The Barn Owl Bakery for my confectionary contraband. The little balls of fried dough were making my mouth water all the way from the opposite end of my truck's bench seat.
I got a selection because I couldn't decide between coffee cake, powdered, or cinnamon sugar (and I planned on sampling, of course). They may have been store-bought, but really, what monster could resist a freshly made donut hole?
Fighting temptation, I rolled my window down for a gust of summertime to toss my hair. A whirlwind of bright florals and crisp Pacific Northwest air filled the cab to split my mouth into a smile.
If it were possible to distill the color green into a scent, it would be Washington state in June.
One of my favorite Springsteen songs came on the radio. So, I cranked up the volume and sang along as my rusty old Toyota crawled through the impressive steel arches of the Rainbow Bridge and headed into Shelter Bay.
The lush trees and overgrown blackberry bushes lining the road started thinning the closer I coasted toward town, giving way to lots full of suburban homes.
Eventually, maritime-themed restaurants and quaint curio shops replaced the peaceful splendor of nature altogether with the bustle of a quaint oceanfront community.
Seasonal tourists zipped along Main Street while locals kept to the posted speed limits on the back roads. We knew the cops liked making examples of 'lead foots' because that was about the most exciting thing to ever happen here.
I was forty minutes early, but I still had a hard time securing a parking spot once I got to the school. That's because Hickory elementary was shared with two other towns, which made a bake sale big business!
It also made parking a nightmare.
After I locked my truck, I popped another donut hole in my mouth (to be extra sure they weren't toxic) and made my way onto campus.
The small collection of brick classrooms were decorated with colorful artwork commemorating the end of the school year.
Patches of well-groomed grass padded the winding concrete walkways and provided an easy path to the gym and play fields where the joyous shrieks of hungry children beckoned.
