San Juan Island

We packed up the car and headed out for our 8 day vacation. Day 1 - drive to Seattle to pick up my mom and John. Then we drove to Anacortes to catch the ferry to the San Juan Island. This would be our first time of missing the ferry. I was warned that you needed to arrive at least an hour early, but we thought, oh, it's Thursday, we will be fine. Well we arrived 10 minutes before the departure time and was told the ferry sold out an hour ago. Makes since, so we went into town, grabbed dinner, and then made it back to the ferry landing 90 minutes before the next ferry left. Yes, plenty of time, so we parked and then walked the ferry area and let the kids run around. Shane was really sad to miss the day ferry and have to ride the night ferry, since he could not see the whales. The night ferry was actually pretty cool because it went fast and we had a gorgeous view on the water. We checked into our hotel and went to bed, it seemed like a really long day.

Waiting in line for the ferry



Our car parked in the ferry line, it was packed so full that no one else could believe

Anders enjoying being in the front seat

Papa and the kids on the deck of the ferry. It was super windy and I had to resist the urge to have a titanic moment at the front of the ship.


Woke the next morning to a gorgeous day. We had planned to bike the island, but by the time we got ready and repacked the car, we had limited bike time since we had to catch a 4 pm ferry - of which we could not miss. We drove around the island instead and stopped at the park best for viewing orcas. Gorgeous views and park, but no orcas. We did watch the fishing boats pull in huge nets and Shane was happy to keep looking. We enjoyed a delicious lunch, salmon sandwich of course, and then got in line for the ferry. We had a reservation, but we were worried from the day before, so we got there early. Actually we were first in line, but happy to be first on. On the ferry we were able to check out the gorgeous trip through the remaining islands and over to Victoria. Everyone but me saw a whale far off in the distance, I was entertaining Anders inside.

Vacation is exhausting - couldn't resist this gorgeous sleeping baby

Lime Kiln Point State Park



I loved these red trees - even more vibrant in person






Waiting for the ferry

Very windy ferry


The whale off in the distance