Travel and Smart Phones

On advice from friends at work David took me out for the day to take a ferry ride to Friday Harbour on San Juan Island close to the Canadian border.

As we traveled past several of the islands we saw a number of lovely houses nestled in isolated locations.

I know this is some peoples dream life style but not for me.  Maybe it is because I have never driven a car but as I get older I really appreciate being close to facilities for shopping and medical needs.

David takes out the smart phone and starts looking up information to find out whether the people who live on these islands are really so isolated after all.  Indeed there are shops to service these people and air strips and one of the islands even supported two air strips.  Of course, these islands are serviced with a regular ferry service with room for motor vehicles so I guess you could live in splendid isolation but still get back to the real world if you have to.

After a good wander around the shops we talked about where we might have a bite to eat for lunch.

We stopped outside the Cask & Schooner which boasted an English style pub menu, with meat pies and mushy peas or bangers and mash or fish and chips.

I was a bit dubious as to how authentic the food might be and we wandered up the street to look at some other restaurants.

Once again David took out the smart phone and with a little bit of research and help from the app, Yelp.com, he was able to confirm that the Cask & Schooner had pretty good ratings 4.5 out of 5 so we went back there and had an enjoyable lunch.  The cheese platter appetiser was a highlight and in spite of the English style food I had a good old American hamburger.

It was a lovely day, greatly influenced by the use of a smart phone - how times have changed.