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San Juan Island

Since Rich had two weeks off, we planned two short trips instead of one long one. The first was Cannon Beach, camping, with dogs. The second was San Juan Island, Bed and Breakfast, and no dogs. While it's nice to have the dogs with us and camping is a cheap way to stay a couple of blocks from the beach, I'm really more of a B&B girl when it comes right down to it! Rich planned out the whole trip so it was all a surprise to me (except the destination). Even more surprising was when we discovered on Monday morning that it was actually the day of our reservation, not Tuesday like we had been planning. Since we could not change the dates with the B&B, we began by rushing around like crazy trying to pack everything, change the dogcare, arrange for my friend Leah to come and let the futon delivery man in, and get to the ferry on time! We ended up making the first ferry on time but just barely. For most of the trip I had to talk myself into knowing that we weren't going to make it. Then, we arrived and the ticket guy said he was hopeful that we might make it. Then, the ferry flag lady let on the cars in front of us, stopped us, and walked away. Then, SHE LET US ON! Some up and down emotions were involved, but we made it! On the other side, we had an hour and a half drive to the second ferry but, since we had made the first one, we had ample time to make the ferry we wanted, allowing us to arrive mid-afternoon on the island. Sadly, many, many people were in line for the second ferry so we spent about three hours sitting in line instead. However, we got to Friday Harbor on San Juan island just in time to check in and go find some dinner. It's a cute little town with lots of little shops and restaurants. It's more vacation-y than many of the places we have been to on the coast out here.

The view from the ferry of the harbor.

The most important building...our ice cream store.

Another cute area, little stores.

I didn't take very many pictures of the cute town, but this gives you an idea, anyway. Our bed and breakfast was about 3 miles outside of town. Called "Inn the Woods", it was set back from the road enough to feel private but was still close enough to see the little pond across the street while we were eating breakfast. The camera stayed in the car most of the time so I don't have pictures of our room. But, it was a nice, bright room with a king size bed (a bed big enough for the dogs to share and they weren't there!), a bathroom with two sinks (yay!), and a soaking tub. Normally, that would have gotten lots of use. It didn't this time, though, because we also had a hot tub on a patio just outside the room. That DID get a lot of use! Anyway, it was a nice place run by a family. The husband seemed to be in charge of the B&B part because he did the greeting, the cooking and the cleaning. He made delicious, fancy breakfasts too!

That first night we asked for a recommendation for a restaurant and he listed off so many, we had no idea what any of them were the second he stopped talking. We tried to find one that was hidden behind a parking lot, but were unsuccessful. I got a little cranky at that point because I was hungry and, at that point, it's always best just to get into whatever the next place available is! We went to "Food for thought" (I think! I was busy running in and getting to a table fast!) Anyway, they had live music. It was one man and his cowboy music. I know many of you out there, including Uncle Dan, would have especially liked him. Lots of Kenny Rogers and even some Marty Rollins (yes, THAT song, Mom!). He wasn't very good but he was having a good time, so that was nice. The food was good too and then we had to see if there was an ice cream store. Luckily, we found The Doctor's Office, which you can see part of in the middle picture above. Homemade ice cream and one of the flavors was cookies 'n cream, so you know I was happy! It was no Sundae School, but it did alright. Anyway, after that it was back to the B&B to try out our hot tub and catch up on some reading.

The next morning, after our quiche and fruit, we found two points of interest on our island map and set out to sight see. The island had gentle rolling hills, fields, and livestock. It reminded me of Whidbey Island (there is a post about that a few before this one). I tried to take some picture of it but some are blurry because we were driving at the same time. If you look carefully at the horizon in many of the pictures, you can see the Olympic Mountains running along them.

Next we arrived at our first point of interest: the lavender farm. I didn't know quite what to expect but I love lavender and I was not disappointed.

Of course, you can imagine the smell. What I didn't realize was about the bees. There were so many bees that you could feel the vibrations of their buzzing in the air. It was amazing. After we enjoyed the beauty of the fields for awhile, we went into the shop where they had everything from lavender soap to lavender chutney. My favorite, though, was the lavender ice cream. We had to try it!

Delicious! If you've never had the chance to try it, you have to go get some. Right now! Our happened to be sandwiched between two chocolate cookies. That's not a bad way to go...

Anyway, on we went to the next place: whale watch park and lime kiln light house. We only had a few minutes here because we had to get back to town for our whale watch, but we wanted to see it. We liked it so much, we decided to go back later that evening for sunset. While we were there, I left SOMEONE alone with my camera for thirty seconds and the result was this:

No, I didn't turn them upside down, they came that way.

For the whale watch we went out on a 55 foot boat called the Sea Lion. This is a different experience from a Cape Cod whale watch. The boat wasn't big. The whales are big. I was a bit nervous. But, as we pulled out of the harbor, we came across some harbor seals and I forgot about the boat size. Now, I will put in some pictures here but they are blurry. My camera lens and the binoculars they gave us had the same zoom power. Rich used the binoculars and I just used the camera lens and clicked when I felt like it. For some reason when it is fully zoomed, though, the pictures come back blurry. I am so disappointed in the quality of these shots (especially because that thing was EXPENSIVE!) Anyway, harbor seals and stellar sea lions (not stellar in the awesome sense, that is the official name) were first on the list. The sea lions were hunting and the seals were basking. Here are a couple of the better shots.

Seals all over the rocks.

A seal in the water.

The sea lion pictures that I have aren't even worth posting because they are too blurry. Next, the boat pulled to the other side of the channel and there was an enormous bald eagle sitting on a rock formation. These are blurry too (UGH!!) but I'm going to post a couple anyway, including a far away shot so you can see how big he was.

You have to click on this one or you might miss that the black speck on top is the bird.

There was also a lighthouse on the southernmost tip of the island that we rounded shortly after the eagle sighting and Mt. Baker was out, although there were a few clouds in my way (how dare they!)

Mt. Baker

There are the Olympic Mountains again. This is another good candidate to be clicked on and enlarged!

Then, on to the whales! We had great luck and probably saw about thirty whales. The thing about killer whales is that you mostly only see their dorsal fins. And, because you are on a smaller boat, you can't see their bodies very well (also because we had to stay pretty far away from them). In that way, it wasn't as exciting as seeing the humpbacks. However, there were so many and when they swam in lines or groups, it was exciting to see many whales together, which the humpbacks don't seem to do. These are blurry pictures too. Also, they are mostly of dorsal fins. I'll just pick a few of my favorites.

I feel pretty lucky to have this picture. They usually don't breach. Not only did this guy breach, but I happened to have my camera zoomed in on him and managed to click the button at exactly the right moment to catch him. Yay!

Here are a couple of my favorite scenery pictures from the ride.

After the whale watch, we found a restaurant for dinner (we had had lunch there too, but it was good so we went back) and headed out to see the sunset. The whale watch area is one of the best places in the world to see killer whales from shore. We missed them because they had already been past at about 4:00 PM, but we had seen so many on the boat that we didn't mind. We had a lot of fun taking our sunset (and pre-sunset pictures though!) Photo credits to Rich for many of these!

We call this shadow-glyphics!

Approaching the lighthouse.

The light house (a different one from the one we saw on the boat earlier.)

Going...

going...

Stop and try to be artistic...

Gone!

That brought us to the end of our vacation on the island. The next morning it was up to have breakfast, drive to get in line for the ferry, and ride off into the sound on our way back to Bremerton (where we had a very sweet greeting from our dogs!)

Cannon Beach

ROAD TRIP!

For our first summer vacation in WA, we decided to drive down the coast to Cannon Beach in Oregon. Elissa and Dave had been there a few years ago and her pictures were awesome, so it seemed like a great place to go. It took all day to get there, with multiple stops for photos along the way and breaks for the dogs. We had decided to camp to save some money and also so the dogs could come with us. I didn't know how Ruby was going to do in the tent, though, being the sort of dog who barks at any little sound. Anyway, we finally pulled into the "Wrights for Camping" campground at about 3:30 in the afternoon. Imagine our surprise after driving all day when we tried to check in and our reservation was for the next day! The poor kid who was checking us in asked us to wait while he spoke to the owner. It is a family owned campground and the house is up on a hill with an office at the bottom. He walked out of the office door and spoken into the intercom: "Hey, Grandma?" Rich and I had a pretty good laugh over that. Luckily, they had one more site available for the night. It was right at the entrance so everyone had to drive and walk past us, but we were happy to have a place to stay. We planned to move over to the other site the next day. After setting up the tent, stopping by the local Safeway (which was a madhouse and we both went into a little bit of shock over wading through all the people) to get the meat to cook later for dinner, we hit the beach. Here's what we found:

The big rock is called Haystack and the smaller ones are called the needles. Ruby and Otis jumped right in and made themselves at home! As usual we had forgotten to bring binoculars but puffins (and of course seagulls) nest on the rocks in the spring and early summer. I don't know if there were any up there when we were there because it was too far off to see, but the bird sounds were deafening. And the seagulls flocked all around the top of it. The sand was soft and oceany, just like at home, so we were pretty excited. We had a nice walk and then headed back to grill our hamburgers. After dinner, we all got in the tent and spent the night waking up to barking every five or so minutes and responding "Ruby-no-bark!" Not a restful night, but we certainly passed the dark hours that way!

The next morning we hit Pig 'n' a Pancake for breakfast. Mmmm! Then we a couple of hours to kill before we could move our campsite. We wanted to take care of it as early as possible so we could spend some time in Ecola State Park. So, we drove off down the coast to see what Arch Cape might look like. I was hoping for a big arch in the water, but no such luck. However, we did find some nice lookouts over the coastline.

It was a beautiful ride and my driver is very understanding about pulling over every couple of feet so I can take a few (or a hundred) pictures!

After we rode back to the campground and moved our site, we decided we'd spend a couple of hours in the early afternoon at Ecola park and then go sit on the beach. The water was too cold to swim but we wanted to get in some good beach time since we finally found a beach with real sand! The first stop in the park was an overlook of crescent beach, which you have to do an expert hike to get into and, therefore, was deserted, and then, farther on, Cannon beach. Off to the other side we could see Tillamook rock, which has a lighthouse on it.

Crescent beach with Cannon (and Haystack) in the distance!

The beaches with our faces blocking them...the obligatory Rich's-arm-out portrait!

Sea Lion rocks. No sea lions that day, though.

Tillamook Rock, with lighthouse.

A sea arch that Rich bravely scaled down a grassy hill to capture.

Then, we hopped back in the car and drove along to the next parking area. We decided to take a scenic walk along a trail right by the coast. It appeared to be about two miles roundtrip, which we thought would be a nice length. Too bad they didn't mention on the map that it was straight up-hill, with no views until the VERY END. I got very grouchy but also competitive because I had already walked so far, I figured the view would be worth it. What was it you ask? Here:

Tillamook rock. Yeah, I ALREADY saw that one! Luckily we also saw three bald eagles, making it a little more worth it.

Our little hike took all afternoon and wore me out so I just wished for a nice hotel shower and bed. Instead, we found a seafood restaurant on the beach (not unlike the Windjammer), and then went to see the beach at sunset. The dogs were tired too but not too tired for Ruby to take a little swim.

Swimming

Our sunset-watching setup.

It's starting!

There it goes!

The golden wave!

The end!

The next day we planned to spend the morning on the beach but it was cloudy and cold so we headed out...not without a stop at Bruce's Candy Kitchen, in honor of Raymond. I mean, why do they PUT things like that on a map of the town anyway? :o)

**Remember that you can enlarge any picture by double clicking on it!