I vote Pogo!

Although our week in Washington only included two nights in the San Juan Islands, I really fell in love with the islands and their relaxed pace of daily life.  Unlike some places I've visited, I felt like I got a good look at how the local residents went about life on Orcas Island, instead of being isolated in a tourist bubble. Part of why I liked Orcas so much was those peeks at the quirky island character.  For example, there was a fundraiser for the Orcas Childrens House that involved a mayoral race...for the island's animals.  What's more: it seemed like the island embraced the contest whole-heartedly and really got behind their candidates of choice. Most readers know that this kind of thing is right up my alley.

This was our first glimpse of the campaign, about halfway between our hotel by the water and Eastsound:

At the time, we were under the impression that Paycey was human.

 Once we got to our destination in Eastsound, we walked around town and saw a poster in a store promoting each of the candidates.  I started laughing and the two clerks told us that they were rooting for April the cow, a write-in candidate.  They were aghast that any of the other candidates stood a chance, because April was actually from Eastsound proper, the biggest town on the island.

Later, in the grocery store by the ferry terminal, I noticed some campaigning on behalf of Pogo. I snapped a photo of his campaign poster, but what the picture doesn't show is Pogo's campaign platform, a full-page, single-spaced letter. From what I recall, Pogo is enthusiastic about everything he does and is tired of big government.

"A small dog for a big job"

The next day, we ended up stranded on a neighboring island for a couple of hours (again, a story for another time).  We bought a copy of the Islands Sounder and took turns reading up on the local news.  Josh got to read first, and I noticed he was making more sounds than he normally would reading the paper. (Sidenote: I have learned the world falls into two camps: those who comment freely as they read the paper and those who hate it when others comment freely. I'll let you guess where Josh and I land. Hint: one is in one camp and one in the other.) 

Anyway, here's what he was chuckling about:

Later in the paper, April herself weighed in with a letter to the editor about her strengths.

A buffalo?!

My only regret is that I didn't get a chance to vote.  For the record, I'm with Pogo: nothing if not special.