Hostel environment

Someone who viewed my Youtube page asked where I stayed when I was on San Juan Island, which is off the coast of Washington, not far from Vancouver. I said that I was spending only one evening there (the other days, I’d be kayaking to and camping on surrounding islands), and didn’t want to spend a lot of money at the expensive hotels. So, I elected to stay at a hostel.

She was surprised and said she didn’t realize there were any hostels in the United States. I had never given it any thought. Maybe we usually call them boarding houses or something else.

Fresh out of college, she had hitchhiked across Europe and enjoyed her stays at hostels. She wanted to know what my experience was like. I doubt if it was near as glamorous as hers, but here it goes.

Disembarking the ferry from the mainland and weighted down by a large duffel bag, I trudged uphill through the few blocks of bars and restaurants that comprise the downtown of Friday Harbor. It’s a tourist area, with the main attraction being killer whale watching. But, this wasn’t the season.

Outside of downtown, it transitioned to older frame houses and some businesses. I turned at a corner bracketed by a fundamentalist church and a junkyard. Glamorous.

It was a potholed, dead-end street. Past the junkyard were a handful of shoddy frame houses. The hostel was one of them, a rambling ranch with a dumpster in the front yard.

To the right of the foyer was the master bedroom, which was the province of the owners. Going left, you walked through the living room, dining room and kitchen to the two other bedrooms. The smaller housed the owner’s children. The larger contained four bunk beds, which comprised the hostel.

I entered and gratefully dropped my heavy bag in the living room. A family was having dinner in the dining room and scrupulously ignored my presence. After some throat clearing and foot shuffling on my part, the mother told me to sign in (pointing to a book on the coffee table) and pick a bunk in the bedroom. I signed in and walked back to the bedroom.

The door was ajar and I just walked in without a second thought. There was a middle aged woman pulling on a pair of slacks. I froze. “Hi!” she said cheerily. She indicated two bunks that she knew to be unclaimed. I took the lower.

I fumbled around with my stuff until she left and then changed out of my travel clothing. Then, I went out to the living room to relax from the ordeal of travel. My bunkmate was there, engrossed in a book. But, as soon as I plopped down, she took the opportunity to reach out.

Her name was Betty and she was from San Diego. She came up here twice a year to listen to the whales talk through the hydrophone located at one of the waterside parks. She liked to keep in touch with them. Who doesn’t?

“This is a long way from San Diego. Can’t you do that through the web?”

“You mean like Facebook?”

Do whales post on Facebook? “I’m having seal for lunch. Yummy. This is a cell phone shot of me at buoy 43 waiting for a container ship to pass so I can cross the channel. Boring! Take this test and see what kind of mollusk you’d be.” I told her it was more like I assumed someone streamed hydrophones on the web. She said she’d look into that, but didn’t think it was likely. Probably more likely than Shamu posting on Facebook.

Before we could pursue that any further, Duffy arrived and shared the couch with me. In the physical sense. Mentally, I don’t know. My guess would be that Duffy had spent a lifetime using his body as a chemistry set. His responses ran toward the non sequitur.

Then, Cammy and Peter arrived. Cammy was a stunning Swede. Peter was an Australian who traveled the world doing nature photography. They had met in South America and he just trailed along with her after that. Few could blame him. Certainly not Duffy who unabashedly ogled her like a wolf stares at a pork chop.

In walked Conrad. We asked about his interest in being on the island out of season and made other small talk. His responses were a uniform, “Why do you want to know?” There were no further inquiries. At first I had him pegged for a backpacker. Now, I envision him assembling pipe bombs in a remote cabin in Montana.

Peter was using a laptop to share some of his photography when a tall couple walked in, clad in bicycle togs. The older man was Jim and his younger companion was Stephanie. The conversation got around to the cramped accommodations and Jim said that anything would do for unwinding after their long ride.

Duffy had been zoning out, but suddenly took an interest. He tried to focus on Jim and sneered, “I’m surprised you didn’t get a private room for what you must have in mind.”

Jim was quite poised. “I believe what you have in mind is illegal in this state and probably all the others.” I thought the family resemblance was apparent, but I wasn’t looking through Duffy’s foggy eyes.

“Oh, into the kinky stuff, eh?” There was an understandable lull in the conversation, mercifully ended by Cammy producing some wine bottles from her rucksack and offering to share.

Peter helped her serve, but I declined the grape, anticipating some demanding days of kayak camping. Peter tilted his head toward his own gear. “Ever try tequila?”

“Yes, I believe I have. But, I’ll still pass.”

We spent a couple more hours, mostly listening to Peter expound upon his adventures and Duffy answer questions that had probably been posed to him one or two or ten years ago. His interjections held no discernable connection to our conversation. Conrad’s eyes continuously flicked from face to face, trying to detect a conspiracy against him.

I was still wired from my trek and wanted to wait them out anyway, rather than engage in a rugby scrum of apparel changing in the confined bedroom. The participants fell off, until it was just me and the ever-vigilant Conrad. I don’t think he wanted to risk one of us slitting his throat while he slept. I was beginning to see his point.

I had an early launch and the benefit of my body still functioning a few time zones east. So, I was up and away before anyone else awoke. No matter. The previous evening’s experience sufficed.