San Juan Islands - 2008

The summer of 2008 brought us to an adventure of buying our first house.  Needless to say, we didn't have a lot of spare change to do much traveling. However, our wonderful realtor told us how she and her husband loved to go to the San Juan Islands, so we decided to check them out.

The drive took a little longer than we thought as the best way to go is to head north and right before you get to Seattle, you turn west and drive all the way to the end (of the continent), about two or three hours via a smaller highway, construction, and stops along the way.  But alas, we made it to the ferry in Anacortes. We bought our ticket to San Juan Island, the biggest and most populated of them all.

We have this magnet. 

The ferry ride was very beautiful and very windy. It was maybe an hour or so until we arrived on San Juan Island. It had been a long time since I'd been on a ferry where you take your car, so that was exciting. We drove onto the island and went about 20 minutes until we found our campground. It was a really nice campsite right by a lake. Even though it was sunny, it was too cold to swim in it. 

Windy ferry ride. Some people live on those islands behind us and commute to work to Friday Harbor via kayak or boat.

What a surprise this was to find on our morning drive.

 At least he was nice.

We headed back out to explore the island.  We found an outdoor concert and joined the crowd. We stayed there until we got hungry, then headed back to the campground to make dinner - hotdogs over the campfire - yum!  After a long day of traveling, we were tired and ready for bed.

Jace in his element.

The next day we got up and were ready to go kayaking! We went on a half day kayaking trip around the island. It was perfect! There was no wind and the sun was out. Way across the water we could see Canada. I waved to my relatives and pretty sure I saw them wave back.

Kelp is very nutritious and quite delicious!

After that, we went on an awesome hike where at the very top, we could see a lot of little islands surrounding San Juan.

Great hike!!

Then we went to Roche Harbor, which is a posh hippity hoppity spot where lots of rich people park their yachts. We walked along the deck and saw some yachts for sale. The prices were in the millions so we'll have to teach a few more years until we can buy one.  Maybe it was because we still had our hiking clothes on and dirt smudges all over, but we got some dirty looks, so we left and went to an outdoor patio restaurant for lunch. The clam strips were delicious!

Roche Harbor

We continued on our drive all around the island. The San Juan Islands are well known for their whale watching, but we had yet to see one. We went to a park that was supposed to have great views of whales.  We parked the car, walked down to the waters edge, and what do you know, there were whales right out in front of us!  There were two or three small groups of orcas, including a baby. They would swim around each other and blow water from their spouts. It was very exciting, especially since we had just walked down there and immediately saw them. Two women who let us borrow their binaculars told us jokingly, "We hate people like you. We've been here since 8 am." It was sunset now and it was a magnificent sight to see.

I didn't take this picture, but I swear this is what it looked like!

The next morning, we went to breakfast at a cool little cafe that was really expensive. In fact, I ordered some coffee, fruit, and toast. The menu said the bread was "8 grain organic wheat blah blah blah" so I thought, "Yum! How healthy!" even though it was $3.99. When the waiter brought us our food, we noticed the toast was the same bread as the bread we buy at home, and pay less than $3.99 for a whole loaf at Winco. Oh well. We had a good laugh and I savored every crumb.

This is actually a different coffee shop, but we did the same thing there.

We caught the ferry and headed home. The San Juan Islands are a great place for a weekend adventure. We want to go back and check out the other smaller islands someday....