Washington Road Trip - Day 5 - Water Water Everywhere

The fifth day of our vacation was Tuesday June 30th. Read about Day Four Here.

According to the original plan we were supposed to wake up at the Sol Duc Hot spring Campground in Olympic National Park. We would drive from the campground to Port Townsend and take a ferry across the Puget Sound to Coupville. Then we'd drive to Anacortes and take another ferry to reach San Juan Island where we'd camp at the San Juan County Campground on the night of the 30th and July 1st.

Every single thing about this plan had either been cancelled or rearranged.

Our reservation at Sol Duc Hot Spring had been cancelled the week before and I'd scrambled to find us a spot at Deception Pass State Park on Whidbey Island. This meant that we'd already crossed the Puget Sound on a ferry.  We still had the ferry ride from Anacortes, but I'd changed the time to be earlier in the day since we were camping closer to Anacortes. And our ferry destination had changed as well. We weren't going directly to San Juan Island. Our reservation on the 30th had been cancelled earlier in June. We still had the July 1st reservation (for now), but I'd had to reserve a campsite at Moran State Park on Orcas Island for June 30th. So our destination for the day was Orcas Island rather than San Juan Island.

But when I woke up in the morning I had other things on my mind. I needed to do laundry and I needed to charge the battery for my camera.  These were such pressing concerns that I actually woke up before my alarm went off at 5:00 AM. Honestly I'm not surprised I'd woken up early. I hadn't slept very well. Brandon and I were letting the kids use our big fluffy sleeping bags as sleeping pads since the ground was so rocky here. That left us with one of the kids sleeping bags. I'd felt cold a lot during the night because I was wearing carpri pajamas (it had seemed stupid to pack multiple pairs of sweat pants for pajamas back when I was packing in 90 degree weather in Idaho.) 

Brandon had already put the garbage bag full of dirty laundry into the car for me. He'd also taken the empty "hat" off the car so it wouldn't flap around while I drove.

I'd looked up the address for the laundromat in Oak Harbor the night before. I used my phone GPS (for possibly the first time ever) to give me directions. It was pretty simple to get there, but it was really nice to have the GPS.

While I drove I listed to the latest episode of Baconsale. I'd been able to download it when it came out on Monday, but this was my first chance to listen to it. I was super excited to hear the hosts read a comment I'd left on Facebook about a previous episode. Hearing my name on my favorite podcast is always so fun. Here's the link.

The laundromat opened at 5:00 and I was there by around 5:20. There was no one else there, which was kind of nice because then I could figure out the machines without anyone else around. The machines were really cool. They had huge washing machines and dryers that could hold four loads of laundry worth or clothes. There were also smaller options that could hold double or single loads. 

We had some really dirty towels and swimming suits so I did a double load of those. A double load of colors and a single load of whites. 

The machines didn't take any payment at the machine. Instead there was a payment center where I entered the machine number and paid for the machines with either cash or a card.  This was really cool too.

While the clothes were washing I found an outlet and charged my camera battery and my phone. I'd brought Brandon's laptop to try and download some pictures off the cameras memory card, but I realized I didn't know his password. (He has ridiculously complicated passwords that I don't even try to learn.)  

When the clothes were done washing I moved them over to the dryers. EVERY laundromat I've ever used has had wimpy dryers that take forever to dry clothes. I guessed at how much time these dryers would need based on past experience.  But these dryers were super efficient. Everything was dry about 10 minutes earlier than expected.  So well done Midway Laundry in Oak Harbor.

I was still waiting on the camera battery to charge so I took my time folding and organizing the laundry. It felt so good to have clean clothes. With these clothes and the ones that we hadn't worn yet we now had enough clean clothes to last the rest of the trip. 

It was close to 8:00 when I left the laundromat. I got gas before leaving Oak Harbor. I decided that rather than go straight back to came I'd go to the overlook by the Deception Pass Bridge and take some quick pictures. 

The bridge is actually kind of hard to get a picture of because the trees are in the way.

I walked out on the little walkway along the side of the bridge. Here's the view looking out into the Sound.

And the view on the other side. 

I didn't stay long because I had all the food in the car and I was worried about the kids all waking up before I got back. But I really didn't need to hurry.  Brandon was the only one awake when I got back.  He started making breakfast when I got back. He'd bought bacon and eggs during our stock up trip the day. We had those for breakfast along with strawberries.  

Brandon and I worked on packing everything up and getting ready to go.  The kids helped a little bit, but mostly just played around. Derrick and Veronica played in the car. Charlotte and Lydia got out their barbies and played with them in the grass.

Brandon put the hat back on the car. The big suitcase, the tent and all 6 sleeping bags went up there. It could have held more but we were still trying to stay under the 7'2" height requirement for the ferry.

Before we left I took this picture of one of the big trees. The trees in this campground had been at least 75 feet tall. Their trunks were much larger than I could reach around.

We left the campsite and started driving to the Ferry Terminal in Anacortes. We would take the ferry from Anacortes out to Orcas Island. After we landed on Orcas we would drive to the state park.

We had plenty of time to make it to Anacortes, but it was still a little worrying when we ended up behind a truck painting lines on the road. Thankfully they pulled over after a little while and let the line of cars behind them pass.

Our ferry was scheduled to leave at 11:20. We were advised to be in line 45 to 60 minutes early. So we arrived around 10:20. Here we are waiting in line.

This was our view. We couldn't see the ferry port so we had no ideas when ships arrived or departed. A voice would come over a loud speaker and announce what ferry was arriving and advise passengers to prepare.

The wait was really long. There was a bathroom nearby so we were able to use that when we needed it. We also ate lots of snacks. Earlier in the week the kids had been turning their noses up at the apples we'd bought. But now the apples were a big hit.

We caught up on Marco Polos from our families. I also wrote down the notes of the things we did the previous day.  I'd been doing this at various times during our trip, but I decided that ferry waits were the best time to do this.

11:20 came and went and we were still in line. I think we waited an extra half hour before we heard the loud speaker announce that the ferry to Orcas was arriving. Soon it was our lane's turn to drive onto the ferry.

We  were again directed into an area on the sides of the ferry. This time the sides had open windows so we had a view.

We could see the underside of some docks.

We could have just stayed in our car for the whole ride - and really that's what the ship advised for passengers during COVID. But we'd just paid $103ffor our ticket so we were going to get our money's worth. So we got out of the car and found the stairs to take up up. A few other people did the same.

We went up the the deck where we could watch the ferry leave the dock. The ferry was still loading so we watched lots of cars, trucks, delivery trucks, and even something that looked like a harvesting combine load onto the ferry.

Then it was time for the ferry to push off. The kids were so excited. Veronica had been kind of hot and cold throughout our trip. When her tummy hurt or she was cold in the morning she'd been quick to tell me that "this was not a good vacation." But on the ferries she quickly changed tone.  She'd yell, "This is the best vacation ever." And tell me that she was having a great time.   I took this video and you can hear then cheering in the background.

Good bye Anacortes.

The ferry ride lasted nearly an hour. We sailed between a few islands on our way to Orcas Island.

We went to the deck in the front of the ship. The view was great.

The camera battery hadn't ever fully charged at the laundromat so I'd brought the charger upstairs in the ferry. I found a plug and had it charging during most of our ride. I'd go back and sit near it every so often. Veronica took this picture of my while I was watching the scenery out the window. Notice how long my hair is. Usually I just pull it up because it's so hot in Idaho. But the weather here was in the 60s most of the time so I left it down. Derrick noticed it one day and said, "Mom, look at your long hair. You need a hair cut."

The ferry was a completely different place than it would be during non-COVID times. The galley with the famous "Ferry Food" was closed. And lots of seats were blocked off in order to help passengers stay 6 feet apart from each other.

Here's Veronica looking at the view.

The kids and Brandon were outside most of the time. The kids didn't like wearing their masks.  (Mostly because I'd hastily made the masks and they didn't fit great.) So we figured it was better for them to stay outside. 

It's hard to remember exactly where this picture was taken, but I think we sailed between these two islands.

Here are Brandon and I. Vacation selfies in the time of COVID.

The ride was long enough that the novelty kind of wore off after a while and we found a place we could all sit.

Derrick was still scanning the water for any sign of whales.

We stopped at Shaw Island to let off some passengers and pick up others. Shaw Island's ferry terminal was so cute. There were flower baskets lining the ramp and pedestrian passengers just walked on and off on the road. It was cool to watch people walk off the ship with just a back pack on their backs.  Where did they go? What adventures were they going on?  I could tell that Brandon was wishing he could go island hoping with just a backpack. (Not that he didn't want to be with us, but something about the unencumbered life really appeals to him.)

There was another ferry waiting in the water while we pulled away from Shaw. They were waiting for their turn to dock there.

We moved to a different part of the ship and the kids noticed a picture of a statue holding up a fish.

The girls all had to take turns copying the picture.

All of them.

It wasn't long after stopping at Shaw that we coming up to Orcas. We went back to our car and got ready to leave the ship. (And we made sure to put on plenty of hand sanitizer.)

Here was our first view of Orcas.  (The island, not the animal.)

We had to wait a little bit for our turn to leave.

But soon we were driving on the island. This was exciting. We've been on islands before that we reached via bridges, but this was the very first island that had no roads leading off of it.

The island is shaped like and upside down U. We were going from oneside of the U to the other.  This is the view of the bay in the middle of the U.

The drive was maybe 20 minutes. But as we drove I started to realize how tired I was. I'd been awake since 4:45 and hadn't slept well that night. ALL I wanted in the world was to take a nap. We made it to the state park and went to check into our campsite. There was a line at the check in station. Brandon and I were both struggling to stay awake in that line.

The lady in the check in booth was super nice. I remembered to ask her for a ferry schedule for the inter-island ferry we'd (hopefully) need the next day. Then we drove to our campground.

Brandon and I went to work putting up the tent right away. As soon as the poles were in place I went to the car and found the air mattress and the pump. Brandon was still putting in stakes while I pumped up the air mattress. He was still putting the rain fly on the tent while I was shoving the air mattress into the tent. I was asleep within minutes. 

Our campsite was next to a small lake. The kids had been in the water almost as soon as we arrived. 

So while I was taking a nap Brandon let the kids get into their swimming suits and swim in the water.

No matter how cold it is, Derrick loves water.

When they were done with the water he had them lay in the sun to dry. They pretended he was a chef that was letting them cook.  He'd pretend to flip them over and if they weren't dry he'd say, "This one needs more time to cook."  While they were laying there a butterfly flew over. Lydia caught it.

It's that cool.

And then it landed on Charlotte.

By the time I woke up the kids had already changed back into their regular clothes and everything was drying on the GIANT logs by our campsite. Actually when I woke up the kids and Brandon were gone.  They'd driven back to the entrance to buy wood for a campfire. Soon they came back. Here's the view of our campsite. 

Every campsite we stayed at had raspberry and black berry bushes all over the place. The black berries hadn't been ready yet, and the raspberries had been picked over at our other camp sites. But this one had a raspberry bush with lots of berries.  Every time I walked by it on my way to the bathroom I pulled a berry off and ate it.

Here's our tent and Derrick by the water.  This was Cascade Lake. We were at the Southend Campground in site #10.

This campground also had tall trees. They were ginormous. 

Brandon built a fire and cooked hot dogs over the fire. Here's our dinner. (Charlotte was a little annoyed I was taking a picture.)

After dinner we decided to drive up Mount Constitution. This is the highest spot in the San Juan Islands so we were interested in the view. The drive up was very pretty too. These Lupins had been growing all over the state, but I got the best picture of them here.

There is a tall observation tower at the top. It had placards that described the things we were seeing.  However, it was closed due to COVID.  So we were left guessing. 

I'm fairly certain we were facing east so we were looking back at the mainland. 

Derrick thought the dark patches in the water were whales. And was SO EXCITED. I kind of wish we'd just let him keep thinking that he was seeing whales because the look of joy on his face is so priceless. 

Here's Brandon and the twins enjoying the view.  Veronica was NOT enjoying it.  She was back to hating the vacation because she was too cold. The only way I'd got her up the trail from the parking lot of the observation area was by bribing her with an oreo.

Here I am.

Another view of the tower.

We realized Lydia could probably fit through the bars. I joked that we should sent her up to the top to take pictures. But decided that wasn't a great idea.

On the way down we stopped at a pull out for a view in the different direction. I think this was looking south west.

Charlotte and Lydia hopped out of the car with me when I got out to take pictures.

We didn't have anything better to do so we drove around the island a bit. We drove all the way to the end of the U. We saw lots of deer on the side of the road. These were the best fed deer I've ever seen. This baby deer was super cute.

It scampered up the hill, but looked back at us.

Then we headed into the main "town" on Orcas called East Sound. It's in the middle of the U. I was trying to find any sort of reception for my cell phone.  Our campsite had been too remote for phone service or mobile data. Brandon dropped me off on the main street and then circled around to find a parking spot. I was able to get service. I logged into my email and found an email from San Juan County Parks. This is what I'd been hoping to access. The day earlier I'd had a phone call from the County Park saying they may not be opening at 100% capacity like they had hoped. If the county didn't get approval from the Governor to move to Stage 3 then they would have to open at 50% capacity. That meant some campground reservations would be cancelled.  I'd been told that my reservation for site 11 might stay, but they weren't sure. I'd been told to check my email on Tuesday for more info. 

I opened the email and read that the county hadn't been approved for Stage 3 and so the campground was opening at 50% capacity.  There was a link to a list of the sites that were going to be closed and the sites that would stay open.  I clicked the link, but could not get it to open. This was frustrating. I needed to see this list. I needed to know if we were fine to head over to San Juan Island the next day or if we should try to get another night at Moran State Park.

I called the two phone numbers I could find for San Juan County.  One for the Parks and Rec department and one for the Campground. I left messages for both. I told them I was on Orcas and couldn't access the list for some reason.  Could they please call me back and leave a message letting me know if site 11 was still open. 

I was heading back to where Brandon had parked. Derrick jumped out of the car and said, "MOM did you see the KILLER WHALE?"  He started pointing up the street. I had no idea what he was pointing at.  He kept saying, "Let's go see it." and took me up the street. I didn't see what he was pointing at until we were only a few buildings away. But as soon as I saw it, I knew why he was so excited. It was a life sized statue of a Killer Whale. I think this alone made the whole trip worth it. Derrick was in heaven.

Brandon took this picture of me and Derrick as we walked back.  I was still trying to open the file so I had my phone out.  Also we need to talk about my crazy outfit. I learned that tunics and leggings aren't very practical in the Pacific Northwest. Tunics do not look flattering with jackets. I'd spent the day either with my jacket unzipped and feeling cold. Or with my jacket zipped up and feeling like a dork.

We drove to a little parking lot by the bay and Brandon took Derrick and one of the twins down to the water.

 I stayed in the car and tried to figure things out. I logged into our bank account to see if the campsite money had been refunded to see if that gave me a clue.  But I knew it had taken a few days for all of my other cancellation refunds to come through so I didn't expect that to help too much.  Then I got on the county reservation website to see if that would help. I was hoping that if I got into the reservation system I could see if campsite 11 was available for a future date and that would help me know if it was available the next date. I actually didn't have to go that far. The list of open and closed campsites was available on the website and I was able to open it.  That alone felt like a victory.  So when I saw that campsite 11 was on the list of open sites I was extra happy.  We didn't have to change any plans.  We could go to San Juan Island as planned.  Whew.

We went back to the campsite. The sun was starting to set and I got this really cool picture of Lydia by the water.

Here's another picture. Under normal circumstances there were kayak rentals for this lake. I would have liked to have done that.

I had to fill up some of our water bottles and when I went to the spigot to do that I realized there was a good view of our camp ground. We were sharing the area with a family that was having some sort of family reunion. Some of the family was in the spot right next to us and the rest of the family was in some spots a little down the road. They were walking back and forth a lot, but they weren't very disruptive. 

We relight the fire and sat around talking. We made up some more songs for our road trip musical. One was a list of everything we do to pack up camp in the style of "When Will My Life Begin" From Tangled.

Seven a.m., the usual morning lineup
Start on the sleeping bags and stuff them til their all in.
Take down the tent, and roll it up
Stuff it in the bag and by then it's like 7:15

Then this one based on How Far I'll Go from Moana

I've been waiting for this ferry

All morning long

Never really knowing why

I thought it would be fun to list all the things I do for the kids on vacation and set it to the tune of You're Welcome from Moana.  Something like:

What can I say except you're welcome
For the campsites, the ferries, the plans
Hey, it's okay, it's okay
You're welcome
I'm just an ordinary busy mom

Here I am with the fire.

We had a good time talking and laughing. A little before 10:00 the kids were ready for bed. All their sleepers were clean and dry again so I helped them change into those. The kids wanted to pose with their hoods on before they changed. 

After I helped the kids change I went out and sat by the fire with Brandon for a while. Charlotte came out too. I'd felt great after my nap, but I was getting sleepy again so I went back into the tent and went to bed. Charlotte came in after a little while. Brandon followed after her.  As soon as Brandon was in the tent we heard rain start falling on the tent.  It rained all night long.