On Tuesday night I had Derek get his things together and sleep in Doug’s bed so he didn’t have to hurry and get here to leave early Wednesday morning. That morning we got up and packed mom’s car. We got a Discovery Pass, a new way to take more money from us, to keep the state parks open on Monday after the cans at Sunbird’s. We would need it where we were going. Mom had booked a cabin at a place just outside of Anacortes called Pioneer Trails Campground. This was my first time that I could remember being at an RV park. Lots of people who were here looked like they lived here for months on end or even actually lived here year round. I even saw a cat.
Before we got there we stopped in Mount Vernon to grab some lunch. We went to McDonalds because I wanted the Smurfs from the Happy Meals. Lol. We got to the campsite around 1:30 and moved all of our stuff in. It was quite the comfy cabin.
We all got back in the car and headed south towards Oak Harbor, down at the end of the island. None of us have been here before, so we explored as much as we could. Derek and I did a little geocaching because we had a mission to get all of the counties and DeLorme squares since we were up there.
Dad really didn’t enjoy the geocaching, in fact he complained about it a little, but still let us do it anyway. He didn’t really have a choice since I was the driver. We drove back up the island to Deception Pass, the place mom created around the vacation. The state park was pretty cool.
Derek and I did some geocaching while mom and dad walked around the beach front near the bridge. We took it all in because we have no idea when we’ll be back to this area, especially on a nice day. We headed up closer to the bridge and walked on it and around it to see it from the different angles. We were definitely high up when you looked down to the ocean. Mom, Derek and I completed an earthcache at this site before finishing up in the Deception Pass area.
It was getting darker and we decided to drive home the long way back to the campsite via the scenic route to Anacortes and around to our cabin. The area was absolutely stunning. I’m glad we decided to go that way. We grabbed a few more geocaches before we got hungry and went back to the fort. We started a fire and had some hotdogs, chips and potato salad. We hung out at the cabin, visited and eventually got ready for bed because tomorrow will be a long day.
We all got up by 7ish to get all of our stuff ready to get on the ferry. We weren’t sure how long it would take to get to the ferry terminal in Anacortes or if we would get on the first or second ferry. So we took a gamble and headed out. I haven’t been on a ferry since I was in 4th grade (which was 1994) with Mr. Pitts and some other students. We rode the ferry from Bremerton to Seattle to go to a Mariner’s game in the Kingdome. We got to the terminal, paid our fees and drove the car to the appropriate lane for Friday Harbor. We were the LAST car on the first ferry called the Hyak.
We took a few pictures because we were excited to be on a ferry. The ride took about an hour and we saw the sign, Welcome to Friday Harbor. We got off at the terminal and started driving. We had no idea where we were going or what we were going to do. Mom started looking at her maps while we stopped every now and then to geocache. We had to hit specific areas to get the DeLorme squares and the counties. The first place we went on the island was the Lime Kilz State Park. Our Discovery Pass was paid for instantly on that trip. We went to several places that required the pass. The state park was pretty cool. They used to mine the limestone and incinerate it in the large structures they built out of brick and concrete. This was also an Earthcache and we learned a lot about the area. You can actually see it from Google Earth.
It was nearing lunch time so we drove to San Juan County Park. We brought stuff to make sandwiches and found a semi clean picnic table. We ate out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chips and drinks and enjoyed the view. Someone said that we just missed the Orca whales by about a half hour. We drove around the rest of the island with stops along Roach Harbor, where we saw a camel called Mona. It kind of threw us off seeing a camel on the San Juan Islands.
Dad started freaking out and wanted to return to Friday Harbor because he thought we might not make it back for the ferry and we would be stranded there for the night. I told him it wouldn’t happen because we had two chances to go back. We headed to the terminal and the lady told us that the 4:00 ferry was full but we were guaranteed a 6:00 ferry ride back. We had to park the car for a short amount of time and then parked it in the appropriate lane to go back to Anacortes.
We had to wait a couple of hours so Derek and I went geocaching and mom and dad walked around the harbor. On our way up the street, a lady asked us where the liquor store was, she was very washed up looking. We found quite a few before heading back to the terminal. We got a t-shirt and had some ice cream as we waited. We were one of the first vehicles on the ferry. This one was called the Elwah.
We parked where we were supposed to and walked up to the lobby area and hung out reading travel magazines. We got to Anacortes around dinner time, headed back to our cabin and started a fire. Turns out we forgot our chicken for our sandwiches and mom and I had to run back into Anacortes for something for dinner. We grabbed some pulled pork to warm up and eat with the buns we brought. We relaxed, ate dinner and logged our stuff before we used the restroom and went to bed.
The next day, we packed up all of our stuff and decided to go Hwy 11 to Bellingham just to see more of Washington since none of us have really been up there, except Derek, he lived there at one point. We stopped by a few of the pullouts off of the highway just to see the view of the Sound.
It was beautiful, too bad we had to hurry up and hurry home. We entered Bellingham and drove around Western, just to see where Barlow went to school. Pretty campus, but it’s no WSU. We had a quick lunch at McDonald’s because they were still doing the Smurf toys. We headed back down towards Seattle. The traffic was horrendous so we stopped by Doug’s place in Shoreline for a while and visited. We got back on the road about an hour or two and headed home. The San Juans was quite an experience and would love to go back to Orcas Island next time.
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