Today the Scatter Family Land Schooner sets sail for the wilds of the Olympic Peninsula, where the winds whip westerly and the mountain peaks glisten like gold. (Actually the winds tend to blow toward the east, off the Pacific Ocean, and the mountains, when you can see them through the drizzle and the pelting platitudes, are white with ice and snow. But Mr. Scatter is feeling alliterative this morning.)

This is a land where the crab grow sweet and pure, where the brawny geoducks plant their lurid necks in the sand, where good hot coffee rarely comes from the Land of Starbucks but from thermoses and home-grown oases of dryness and warmth. A place where wool plaid is still a fashion statement and a ramshackle emporium called Swain’s General Store beats the thermal-lined undergarments off of anything Walmart can offer, at least in terms of interesting cool stuff from all sorts of odd corners of the collective imagination.

A place where the Expanded Scatter Family Thanksgiving Feast awaits, and where we wish you well and happiness at your own.

As we cruise up Hood Canal we vow to keep our eyes open for a well-dressed walrus and carpenter prowling on the beach. They seem to have a way with oysters. And we plan to snag a few dozen for ourselves.

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Above: Sir James Tenniel, 1871 illustration from Lewis Carroll’s “The Walrus and the Carpenter.” Wikimedia Commons