A trip across water, and time

From Seattle, escape to Vashon's backcountry roads, immerse in the art galleries and oh, visit the Burton Coffee Stand for a taste of the island's spirit. Ethan Todras-Whitehill shows you around.

Unknown to the rest of us, the Washington State Department of Transportation has invented a time machine. Sure, it looks like a ferry, running the route between Seattle and Vashon Island dozens of times a day. But how else to explain what you find when you arrive on Vashon?

Only 22 minutes from downtown Seattle and with a land mass the size of Manhattan, the hilly, woodsy island has a population of just 10,000.

It's home to over a dozen small family farms selling their kale and beets and free-range eggs through unmanned farm stands that accept payment on the honor system.

In the island's main town, shopkeepers greet their patrons by name, and the only traffic jams are found on the sidewalk where townsfolk stop to chat unhurriedly with their friends, neighbors and even complete strangers.

The ferry may not be an actual time machine, but it is the only way on or off the island. From Seattle, Vashon makes a great overnight trip, just enough time to explore the island by bike and kayak and, in general, sample life in Puget Sound at an old-fashioned pace.

I made just that sort of visit last summer. But I decided I wanted more than a taste of that life. So my wife and I moved to the island last September.

The hub of activity, I soon learned, is the main town, which is in the northern third of the island and is also called Vashon. Many locals simply refer to it as Uptown.

Viewed from one angle, Vashon is your average small town, with three banks, a hardware store, a post office, a theater, a bookstore and a couple of supermarkets.

From another perspective, it is an enclave of hippies, with a gluten-free/vegan cafe, a fair-trade gift store selling items like woven root place mats and hand-thrown pottery, a yoga studio, a Saturday farmers' market and a half-dozen art galleries showing everything from wildlife photographs to works consisting entirely of words.

If you want to experience that artistic quality firsthand, you can base yourself near Vashon, where you'll find the Artist's Studio Loft. If you're looking for a rural getaway, there are a number of B&Bs that offer solitude and spectacular views (weather permitting).

Outside Vashon town, the island is full of small communities, most of which don't have so much as a general store.

The main exception is Burton, a few miles south of town along two-lane Vashon Highway.

Burton is home to the Burton Coffee Stand, perhaps the best place for an outsider to experience the island's spirit.

A small shack and portico decorated with clematis vines and Adirondack chairs, each day it hosts the writers, programmers, mothers and farmers who come to joke and trade gossip with their friends.

My Seattle-area friends had led me to expect two things from Vashon: free love and dreadlocks.

Since no one's hair appeared unwashed, I asked the Burtonites about the popular perception of the island. They roundly denied it. "We're not all crazy hippies!" a sprightly, white-haired organic farmer declared. Then she handed me a business card that identified her as the "Contessa of Compost."

However you define a hippie, one thing is for sure: Vashon is full of arts-minded people, both connoisseurs and creators.

This is an island with a fraction of the population of an average New York neighborhood, yet it has its own opera company, chamber music society, artist studio tour, a Prairie Home Companion-like variety show called "Church of Great Rain", a Shakespeare in the Park program and summer concert series.

This sanctuary for artists is also a popular destination for Seattle-area cyclists and sea kayakers - the former for the island's backwoods roads, and the latter for the protected waters of Quartermaster Harbor.

Vashon's strangest landmark is a tree, just off the highway near the second four-way stop. It appears to have eaten a small bicycle.

That's not far from the truth: Many years ago, a child left a red bike against the tree, and, this being Vashon, the bike was left unmolested for so long that the tree grew a branch under the bike and eventually subsumed the frame into its trunk, leaving only the wheels and handlebars sticking out.

The bicycle tree was made famous by Berkeley Breathed, of "Bloom County" fame, who wrote a touching children's book called "Red Ranger Came Calling" about the bike's "true" origin.

Vashon doesn't have the culinary offerings of the mainland, but neither is it your typical small-town restaurant scene.

There is a legit sushi joint (Red Bicycle Bistro, natch), a Chinese restaurant, two Mexican restaurants, a new Indian place, a farm-to-table establishment and the island's most popular spot, the Hardware Store Restaurant, built in the 121-year-old building of Vashon's former hardware store. Out front hangs a sign that reads, "Today's special ... so is tomorrow."

So next time you're in the Seattle area, take a day or so and get lost on Vashon's backcountry roads.

Have lunch Uptown and then get lost on the backcountry roads, stopping off to sample a tomato at one of the farm stands you'll inevitably encounter before you rediscover the highway.

Pull on a pair of rubber boots and go clamming in Tramp Harbor at low tide, then, still dressed like a longshoreman, stop in at the Blue Heron Art Center to see its latest exhibition.

You'll fit right in.

The New York Times