Orcas Island

I lived for nearly 10 months, August 1995 – June 1996, in a summer cabin belonging to the grandparents of my first husband, on Orcas Island, located in Puget Sound, Washington. The cabin was right on the water.

I did astronomy data processing part time on a computer loaned out to me by the University of Hawaii, and did a lot of thinking while taking long hikes (4.5 miles from base to summit) up Mount Constitution.

I had recently been awarded a 3-year full NSF Graduate Fellowship, which would cover tuition and pay me a stipend for graduate school. While living on Orcas Island I applied for admission to the Astronomy Ph.D. programs at Caltech, UC Berkeley, and UC Santa Cruz. I only applied to schools that had access to the Keck Telescopes.

: This is beautiful Orcas Island. I lived in Deer Harbor, right around where the arrow points to, if memory serves me correctly. The ferry would pass through the channel every night. I often had deer right outside my bedroom window. Thus the name of the town.

Click on the thumbnail below to read the back of this postcard. It was sent to me from my first husband’s grandmother, Freddy, after I had left Orcas Island and started at Caltech. Notice she remarked that I had left the house in great shape.