Kidnapping Is Obviously Not Their Forte

Yesterday was spent exploring the waterfront community of La Conner, Washington. Just south of State Route 20, it's the perfect side trip if visiting Fidalgo, Whidbey or the San Juan Islands. A pedestrian friendly town with plenty of shops, restaurants and galleries, also has a walking tour of downtown, taking you through a sculpture exhibition. Many of the sculptures are for sale, with prices ranging from $1,100.00 to $20,000.00. Now that's a way to take home a piece of La Conner!

I love the photography and paintings in the galleries, along with the shops carrying unique tchotchkes and local art. The Caravan Gallery brings you jewlery, rugs, clothing and more from far flung places such as Thailand, China and Africa. A Class Act Gallery has everything from glass pieces, driftwood windchimes and pottery. All offered unique items tended by friendly staff, but my very favorite was The Olive Shoppe.

The shelves were lined with hundreds of bottles, from all over the world, of gourmet marinades, sauces, chutneys, jams, jellies, olive oils, vinegars and olives!! Ohhh, the beautiful olives.

La Conner is also home to the Skagit County Tulip Festival, which we were too late for, but is something I would definitely go back to see. There were photographs of the tulips everywhere, many on postcards, which is an affordable way to capture the highlights of the festival!

Then as we drove into the parking lot at the end of First Street, we stumbled across what seemed to be a kidnapping. Four men huddled behind a car. It was suspicious; not the four men hanging out by the care part, but the what they were doing part.

One guy was on his knees with a paper bag over his head, a message written in black marker scrawled across the front of it. A second guy was wearing a black plastic bag as a shirt (I think he even had a belt around it). The third guy was wearing a ski mask, holding a knife to the second guy's neck, and the fourth guy, who also had a ski mask, was setting up his camera trying to get a picture of it all.

I just couldn't pass this by, so I told Ed he absolutlely had to stop. Once he did, I rolled down my window and shouted to the group. "Need a photographer??" In unison they said "Yes!" Three clear responses and one muffled one from the paper bag. So I made my way over to them and proceeded to take their picture. I wish I had gotten one for myself, but they had me use their camera and it didn't occur to me until after we drove off. (NOTE: Javier sent me the photo after I had posted this, so I'm including it now.)The guy playing photographer before I butted in was Javier Mota, a Managing Editor for Univision.com Autos and the one in the plastic bag shirt was Pepe Forte, the host of AutoMania, a talk show about cars on Univision Radio.

It turns out they were a group of journalists from Miami entering a contest to win a Kia Forte. The set up was supposed to look like a kidnapping, the paper bag displaying the ransom note. It said, "If you don't buy this Forte, we'll kill this Forte". It had an arrow pointing to the guy with the knife at his throat; the one wearing the black plastic bag shirt.

Clearly, they knew nothing about kidnapping. Don't they know it's not done in broad daylight? On a pier? With a photographer present??

One of the guys in the group told us that he won a car at another event like this when he went into a women's bathing suit shop, bought a bikini, donned it, and splayed himself across the car like a supermodel. He lifted up his shirt to show me his very hairy, very squishy belly and joked, "Can you imagine what I looked like in that bikini??"

With that comment, it was hard not to visualize him in a bikini. I can see why he won the car though; who can resist a cute furry man in a bikini? That little episode really topped off our day and we're wishing them luck in the contest.

As for Eddie and I, we can now add "witness to a kidnapping" to the list of unusual things we've seen on the road. I don't know if that trumps the lady who flashed us or the McLobster Sandwich, but it's up there.

Don't let a little mock kidnapping keep you away from La Conner. Pack the pepper spray if you must; the town is not to be missed.


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