The original plan for this day was to wake up in the campground in the Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National Park. We'd pack up the tent and move to the Sol Duc Hot Springs Campground which was in a different part of the National Park. But a week earlier our reservation for Sol Duc Hot Spring had been cancelled. So I'd given up on visiting Olympic National Park all together and found us a campsite at Deception Pass State Park on Whidbey Island north of Seattle.
I woke up super early on Monday morning. It was probably 5:30. I laid in my sleeping bag for a while, but soon I had to go to the bathroom. I got up and used the bathroom and then decided I should take a shower. So I walked up to the building at the entrance to the park. There was a machine there that took cash and exchanged it for shower tokens. Each token cost 50 cents and was worth three minutes of hot water. I bought 8 tokens for $4.
Brandon took his own shower and then I went back to the bathroom to get ready for the day.
The other kids woke up and we had pop tarts and bagels for breakfast. (The kids had pop tarts, the adults had bagels . . . and pop tarts.)
We packed up the sleeping bags and I stuffed a garbage bag full of dirty clothes. We still had clean clothes for a few more days, but I was going to need to find a laundromat soon. I helped Brandon take down the tent. He worked on packing the hat on the car and I took the kids to the bathroom so they could each take a shower. The kids were actually pretty clean, but I figured we should take this opportunity to get them cleaned up while we had the chance. They took turns taking 3 minute showers. That wasn't enough time to wash their hair so I told them to just focus on washing their bodies. They had fun putting their tokens into the slot to get the hot water to turn on.
Brandon had everything packed by the time we got back to the campsite. We all hopped in the car and started driving away from Ocean City State Park. It was 9:14. We are usually on the road around 10:00 so this was a good sign.
Our route for the day would take us east from the Pacific Ocean. We'd travel northeast along the west side of the Puget Sound. We'd go to Port Townsend and then take a ferry across the Puget Sound to Coupville on Whidbey Island. Then we'd stay at the state park on the north part of the island near the bridge that connected Whidbey to Fidalgo Island.
We opted to take a little detour along Highway 3 so we could get closer to the Puget Sound. Occasionally we could see bits of water through the trees.
For some reason the kids needed more bathroom breaks than usual on this drive. They used the bathroom before we left, but we were stopping at a gas station not even 40 minutes later. And then 40 minutes after that we had to stop again. That was frustrating.
A long while later Veronica HAD to go RIGHT NOW and so we pulled over at a park looking place. It ended up having no bathrooms for some strange reason so I found her a bush. After that emergency was over we looked around and realized we were at the entrance to a nature area.
We were at something called the Theler Wetlands Trail in Theler. We went for a walk on the trail and ended up on a board walk. Most of the kids were unhappy about this little hike, but we all really needed to stretch our legs.
This place reminded me so much of Landmark Park in Alabama. In fact let's do a comparison. Here's the wetlands in Washington.
And here's the wetland in Alabama.
Yep, pretty similar. Though Washington wasn't humid and didn't have a thousand bugs determined to eat us alive.
The boardwalk took us to a fun little sculpture garden. I'm not sure why someone felt there was a need for a giant carving of a fly, but here is one anyway.
There was a building with some classroom style rooms - that were closed. But the building had an open patio with a cool skeleton hanging from the ceiling. We all stared at it trying to figure out what it was. Then Derrick exclaimed - It's a WHALE!
He was right.
He also happily took a picture with this whale picture.
We also saw birds that had made a nest in some rafters.
The trail took us out to the saltwater marsh. Water from the Puget Sound mixes with fresh water from the mountains.
It was very pretty.
Derrick was hoping to see a whale swim right up in the water.
And this mural was pretty cool too.
Charlotte climbed up on this totem pole statue. Not sure if she was supposed to be up there - but she was so proud of her climbing I took the picture before I made her get down.
We went back to the park-without-a-bathroom and the kids played on the playground for a bit.
While the kids were playing I looked up the nearest Walmart with the GPS. There was one 30 minutes away. So when the kids were done at the playground we kept driving north and then stopped at that Walmart. We all masked up and went inside to use the bathroom. This was probably the most upscale Walmart I've ever been in. Then Brandon and Veronica stayed inside to do the shopping while I took the kids outside and waited in the car.
Brandon bought a camping pots and pans set and was super excited about it. He also got cooking spray and a metal spatula. And he restocked our food with fruit like strawberries and bananas and buns for some of the meals we'd have the next two nights. We'd planned this restocking trip partially because we knew the buns would have ended up squished if we'd tried to travel with them from day one. But they didn't even make it out to the car before they were a little squished. Veronica fell asleep in the basket of the cart and ended up laying on part of the the hamburger bun package.
We kept driving and crossed over a very long bridge.
Part of it had a draw bridge and Brandon was hopeful we'd have to stop and watch the bridge. But that didn't happen.
Soon we came to the city of Port Townsend. This is where we would take our first ferry ride. I had a spot reserved for us on the 5:15 ferry. Our instructions were to check in and pay for our ride between 30 and 45 before the scheduled departure so we needed to be at the dock by at 4:30 at the earliest. We arrived in Port Townsend around 3:00 so we had some time to explore. We found a parking spot in the downtown area and started walking around the city.
We walked out on a pier and got a good look at there ferry dock. The kids were so excited about the ferry ride.
Here's Charlotte excited about being out of the car.
We took a family picture.
Here's looking back at the town. It was so cute.
As we walked down the stairs we were surprised to see a Doe and her babies walking in the trees only a few feet away from us.
We still had some time, and we were all hungry so we had "linner" (Lunch/Dinner) on some benches that were set up by a pier. We had bananas and oreos.
Here's Lydia and Charlotte watching the water while they eat.
We still had a little bit of time so we got back in the car and drove to the uptown area to a building we'd seen from the road. This building didn't have a sign on it, but we think it was a government building.
We also saw the lighthouse.
Then it was time to check in at the ferry. We pulled up to a booth and told them our name and reservation time. Then we paid $26.80 for our ride. The man in the booth told us what lane to get into and we pulled in there and then waited. And waited. And waited. We probably could have got out and walked around a bit, but this was all new to us so we just stayed in the car. It was really hot and the sun was beating down on my side of the car. So I put our sunshade up in my window. This is the only time we used the sunshade on this trip.
I called my sister Emily and wished her a happy birthday. We talked for a little bit, but then I heard the arriving ferry horn so I let Emily go. The ferry landed and we watched the long line of cars drive off. It was so surprising to see large delivery trucks come off the ferry. Soon the cars around us started turning on their engine and a little after that we were directed down the ramp and into the ferry.
Our reservation had been for a vehicle under 7 feet 2 inches tall. Normally we fit that just fine, but with the hat on the car we would be over 7'2" if we weren't careful. I'd made sure to pack a tape measure so we could verify that we'd packed everything low enough. I'm glad we did that because we were directed into the side of the ship where the ceiling seemed very low.
We had seen people at the railings of the ship that came in, so we knew it was okay to get our of our car and walk up to the upper decks of the ferry. I found the masks that I'd made for everyone and we went to find the stairs.
We walked through the areas inside the ferry and found our way to the outside in the back.
This was a great spot to watch the other vehicles load.
Veronica showing off her mask. Not my best sewing job, but hey I was in a hurry.
Derrick loved everything about the ferry.
Here's a rare photo of me with the kids.
While we were on the top deck I got a phone call from a number with a Washington Area Code. I answered the call. It was from a man with the San Juan County Campground that we were planning to stay at in two nights on July 1st. He told me that the county had been hoping to open up at 100% capacity on July 1st, but that required approval from the Governor to move from Stage 2 to Stage 3. The county had submitted a request to move to State 3, but had so far heard nothing back. If they didn't get the approval they would have to open at only 50% capacity which meant cancelling some reservations.
The employee assured me that our reservation was probably going to be okay either way. I'd reserved campsite 11 which was somewhat off on it's own. If they went to 50% it would be one of the campsites that remained open.
The employee told me they should know something definitive by the next day - June 30. He said to watch for an email that would be sent out that day. Until then there wasn't much I could do so I decided I wasn't going to worry about it. I went back to enjoying the ferry ride with my family.
We had such a fun time watching the water.
This is looking north. Somewhere over the horizon were the San Juan Islands. We'd be going there the next day.
But for now our destination was Coupville. As we got close we could see Fort Casey State Park.
This was an old military fort. You could see some of the old fortifications.
We were on Whidbey Island which is a skinny- curvy island roughly shaped like and upsidedown fishhook. We'd landed in the middle of the hook. We needed to drive north to the curve of the hook. Most of our route took us down the middle of the island where trees obscured our view. But occasionally we could see some cool vistas.
But really, for being on a skinny island we didn't see much water.
We were staying at Deception Pass State Park which takes the deception part of it's name very seriously. My reservation was for Site 202 in Lower Loop B, but I had no idea where in the park that was. The State Park spans two sides of Deception Pass. There were campgrounds on Whidbey Island and campgrounds on Fidalgo Island. I could not remember which side I'd booked our campsite on. I vaguely remembered looking at the park map when I made the reservation, but there had been so many different plans to this road trip that I couldn't remember anything specific about this one.
We decided to try our luck with the campground on Fidalgo Island so we crossed the very pretty and iconic bridge over Deception Pass.
This is a narrow bit of water that separates the two islands.
Then we turned into the campground that was on that side of the pass. As we drove we heard Veronica snore really loudly. I turned around and saw that both Veronica and Lydia were fast asleep. Charlotte was laughing her head off at Veronica's snoring.
This is what the road to the campground looked like.
Which is never a bad thing because the view is great. This is looking out at the Puget Sound.
We found the entrance station, but no one was in it. They'd already closed for the day. We could see my name on the campground list for site 202, but there was still no direction for where site 202 actually was. I figured we'd just go over the bridge again, but Brandon wisely said we should try the campground on this side just to see since we were already here. That ended up being a good call because site 202 was on this side. We were all really happy to pull up and see our campsite.
This campsite had a great layout. The tent and picnic area were set back from the road a little bit. We were screened off from the road by a line of tall raspberry bushes. The bathroom was located down a small trail behind our campsite. This bathroom was different than our last one. This one had each toilet in its own little room. It also had a room that had a shower in it. I was glad we'd already showered because I had no idea where to find the shower token machine at this park.
After we cleaned up dinner we went on a walk to find the beach. We knew we were near the beach because we could hear waves in the distance. We found a trail and followed that.
And soon we were on the beach. This was much close to our campsite than the beach had been at Ocean City.
The kids played in the water and Brandon and I sat on the shore and admired the scenery.
Veronica found this big smooth rock.
Here I am by the water.
They had fun playing in the waves and throwing rocks into the water.
While we sat on the shore we started playing another game of chicken with the waves. They'd come close and we'd scoot back another few feet. Then they'd come close again.
At one point they came really close and I screamed and started throwing everything up higher on the beach. Everyone must have thought I was crazy. I laughed so hard about that.
The campsite is right by a Navel Air Station. F16's flew by constantly and made a lot of noise.
Veronica found a little square made from drift wood. She played in there for a long time.
This was one of the prettiest sunsets we saw on our whole trip.
Veronica with her "home."
The batteries on my good camera died while we were on the beach. My batteries died a few minutes after that.
I'd been awake since early that morning and while our vacation wasn't physically taxing it did take a lot of mental energy. I'd been figuring things our all day and I was worn out. Charlotte wanted to go back to camp to change into dry pajamas and to get into bed so I went with her. When we were in the tent she could tell I was having a hard time. I was sighing and breathing deeply trying to stay calm. Even though it was the end of the day I was already feeling stress about the next day. I needed to find a laundromat so I could wash our clothes and I was hoping to do it before we were on the San Juan Islands. I used the GPS on my phone to find a laundromat that was only 15 minutes away. I was worried they wouldn't open until later in the day, but their website said they opened at 5:00 AM. I called the number to make sure that was still a think even during COVID. The message for the laundromat specifically said they were operating with their usual hours during COVID. I set an alarm to go off at 5:00 so I could do laundry before the kids woke up.
When the other kids got back, it took everything I had left to help them into their pajamas and get them situated in the temporary sleeping bag assignments for that night. Brandon pumped up the mattress with the pump at the car and brought it into the tent. As soon as the mattress was in the tent I climbed on top and fell asleep.
I woke up super early on Monday morning. It was probably 5:30. I laid in my sleeping bag for a while, but soon I had to go to the bathroom. I got up and used the bathroom and then decided I should take a shower. So I walked up to the building at the entrance to the park. There was a machine there that took cash and exchanged it for shower tokens. Each token cost 50 cents and was worth three minutes of hot water. I bought 8 tokens for $4.
I walked back down to my campsite and grabbed my towel, clothes, and bag with soap and shampoo. The bathroom was right by our campsite. It had 5 bathroom stalls with flushing toilets and one stall with a shower. This early in the day there was no one else in the building so I could take my time.
I used two tokens for 6 minutes of hot water. It was HEAVENLY. I was worried about running out of water with soap on my body or shampoo in my hair so I hurried real quick to get everything washed. Then I had a minute to just enjoy the hot water before it turned off.
When I got back to came Derrick was awake. He's been working hard on night time potty training lately. We'd set him up with a chart that gave him a reward every time he was dry for 5 nights. So far he'd earned root beer for the first set of 5 days, and ice cream for the second set. This day was the last day of the third set of days. Derrick woke up dry and immediately asked me for his prize - The movie Abominable. I'd anticipated this and so had already bought the DVD and had it in one of the pockets of my backpack. I pulled it out and handed it over to Derrick who treated it like a prized possession for the next few hours. When we drove away from the campsite it was the first DVD the kids watched that day.
We packed up the sleeping bags and I stuffed a garbage bag full of dirty clothes. We still had clean clothes for a few more days, but I was going to need to find a laundromat soon. I helped Brandon take down the tent. He worked on packing the hat on the car and I took the kids to the bathroom so they could each take a shower. The kids were actually pretty clean, but I figured we should take this opportunity to get them cleaned up while we had the chance. They took turns taking 3 minute showers. That wasn't enough time to wash their hair so I told them to just focus on washing their bodies. They had fun putting their tokens into the slot to get the hot water to turn on.
Brandon had everything packed by the time we got back to the campsite. We all hopped in the car and started driving away from Ocean City State Park. It was 9:14. We are usually on the road around 10:00 so this was a good sign.
The first part of our drive was backtracking out the way we had come on Saturday. There were a lot of trees. Then we drove on new roads and there were still a lot of trees.
But it opened up occationally.
A long while later Veronica HAD to go RIGHT NOW and so we pulled over at a park looking place. It ended up having no bathrooms for some strange reason so I found her a bush. After that emergency was over we looked around and realized we were at the entrance to a nature area.
This place reminded me so much of Landmark Park in Alabama. In fact let's do a comparison. Here's the wetlands in Washington.
The boardwalk took us to a fun little sculpture garden. I'm not sure why someone felt there was a need for a giant carving of a fly, but here is one anyway.
We went back to the little classroom area and found some more art behind the building. Derrick was so happy to find Orcas.
I took this picture of this fun log with the alphabet carved into it.
Brandon bought a camping pots and pans set and was super excited about it. He also got cooking spray and a metal spatula. And he restocked our food with fruit like strawberries and bananas and buns for some of the meals we'd have the next two nights. We'd planned this restocking trip partially because we knew the buns would have ended up squished if we'd tried to travel with them from day one. But they didn't even make it out to the car before they were a little squished. Veronica fell asleep in the basket of the cart and ended up laying on part of the the hamburger bun package.
We kept driving and crossed over a very long bridge.
We watched a ferry come in and saw the cars drive off of it. There were so many cars. Ferries are basically floating parking lots.
We walked back into the town and found some stairs that took us to the "Uptown Area."
The view was very pretty.
Back in the downtown area we went into an underground area of the street. We didn't stay down there too long because the kids didn't have their masks, but it was really cute.
We were happy to find a very nice portapotty station in a parking lot. There were even some sinks where we could wash our hands.
We walked through the areas inside the ferry and found our way to the outside in the back.
This was a great spot to watch the other vehicles load.
Then we were able to watch the water get very frothy as the ship pulled away from the dock. The kids loved this so much. They were jumping up and down with joy and excitement.
Here's a last look back at Port Townsend.
We went onto the very top deck and had a great view of the Puget Sound and the land we were sailing toward.
The employee assured me that our reservation was probably going to be okay either way. I'd reserved campsite 11 which was somewhat off on it's own. If they went to 50% it would be one of the campsites that remained open.
The other people on the ferry started heading back to their cars. We followed them and went back to ours. The landing was so smooth we didn't even realize we'd fully stopped until the cars in front of us were directed to turn on their engines and drive out of the ferry. We cheered when we were back on land.
We were on Whidbey Island which is a skinny- curvy island roughly shaped like and upsidedown fishhook. We'd landed in the middle of the hook. We needed to drive north to the curve of the hook. Most of our route took us down the middle of the island where trees obscured our view. But occasionally we could see some cool vistas.
We decided to try our luck with the campground on Fidalgo Island so we crossed the very pretty and iconic bridge over Deception Pass.
We got to the entrance of that campground and saw a sign that said that campers must check in with the main State Park entrance on the other side of the bridge. We might have tried to drive around and find our campsite, but there was a giant RV blocking a lot of the road so we just decided to go back to the other side and see where they directed us.
So we went back over the bridge.
This campsite had a great layout. The tent and picnic area were set back from the road a little bit. We were screened off from the road by a line of tall raspberry bushes. The bathroom was located down a small trail behind our campsite. This bathroom was different than our last one. This one had each toilet in its own little room. It also had a room that had a shower in it. I was glad we'd already showered because I had no idea where to find the shower token machine at this park.
The kids found this huge slug on a stump by our campsite.
The kids and I put up the tent while Brandon heated up dinner. We had Sloppy Joes. We'd precooked the hamberger at home and had kept it cool in our freezer bag. I was slightly distrustful of the meat, but by the time it was headed up and the Sloppy Joe sauce was added it smelled amazing. I decided I didn't care and ate it anyway. We also had chips and Lydia said that eating her potato chips was the best part of her day. Well, that and the ferry ride.
All during dinner I was doing a special kind of "Mom Math." The ground at this campsite was hard and covered in small stones. Our last campsite had had soft grass so I hadn't worried about the kids sleeping on the ground, but I knew they wouldn't be comfortable on this ground. I was trying to figure out how to make 6 sleeping bags and 1 air mattress keep 6 people warm and comfortable.
Finally I figured it out. Brandon and I each had fairly thick and fluffy sleeping bags. We could unzip our bags and use them as ground cover. Charlotte and Lydia could sleep on top of one and Derrick and Veronica could sleep on top of the other. Brandon and I would still get the air mattress. Derrick would sleep in his sleeping bag and Veronica would borrow Lydia's. Charlotte and Lydia could unzip Charlotte's bag and share the bag ontop of them. Brandon and I would share Veronica's unzipped bag. It wouldn't be the best night's sleep, but it would work.
The water was still cold, but that didn't stop the kids at all.
It was so fun to watch them play. I wished the water was warmer so I could play too. I told Brandon that we should plan a trip to the beaches in Southern California next time.
Here's a video of the kids playing.
Derrick was in love with the water.
Here's me and Brandon. You can see Brandon is folding his arms to try to keep from shivering.
I'm 60% sure this is Charlotte. Who ever it is, they look like a sand mermaid.
I'd been awake since early that morning and while our vacation wasn't physically taxing it did take a lot of mental energy. I'd been figuring things our all day and I was worn out. Charlotte wanted to go back to camp to change into dry pajamas and to get into bed so I went with her. When we were in the tent she could tell I was having a hard time. I was sighing and breathing deeply trying to stay calm. Even though it was the end of the day I was already feeling stress about the next day. I needed to find a laundromat so I could wash our clothes and I was hoping to do it before we were on the San Juan Islands. I used the GPS on my phone to find a laundromat that was only 15 minutes away. I was worried they wouldn't open until later in the day, but their website said they opened at 5:00 AM. I called the number to make sure that was still a think even during COVID. The message for the laundromat specifically said they were operating with their usual hours during COVID. I set an alarm to go off at 5:00 so I could do laundry before the kids woke up.
When the other kids got back, it took everything I had left to help them into their pajamas and get them situated in the temporary sleeping bag assignments for that night. Brandon pumped up the mattress with the pump at the car and brought it into the tent. As soon as the mattress was in the tent I climbed on top and fell asleep.
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