Washington Road Trip - Day 7 - Tired Travelers

The seventh day of our vacation was Thursday, July 2nd. Read about Day Six Here.

The beginning of the day had very few changes from the original plan. All along we'd planned to wake up at the San Juan County Campground on San Juan Island and then travel back to the mainland. And we were still able to do that.  What changed were our plans for the rest of the day. We'd planned to go to Seattle and visit some things like Boeing while we were there. We'd planned to stay in a hotel somewhere near Seattle that night.

COVID changed the plans for later in the day. The tour at Boeing was closed indefinitely. (Due to the problems at Boeing I started joking that I didn't think it would be a company by the time we visited.) It didn't seem wise to plan a trip to anything else in Seattle either. (Though I was really tempted to visit the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone and probably would have if A. I wasn't traveling with my kids and B. It wasn't on the decline by the time of our trip.) I hadn't made the Seattle hotel reservation before COVID started shutting things down and ultimately I decided that since we weren't going sight seeing we could just skip the hotel and camp one more night. I found us a spot at Saltwater State Park on the shores of the Puget Sound halfway between Seattle and Tacoma.

Our morning on San Juan Island was really nice. Our tent was on an incline and we were sliding down the tent all night, but everyone slept very well. When we got out of the tent in the morning the wind had finally stopped blowing so we were able to have a nice relaxed breakfast. It was also much warmer than the day before had been and I was able to wear shorts. 

We had instant oatmeal and hot chocolate for breakfast. The hot chocolate was delicious. Sipping that hot chocolate and gazing down to the water was one of my favorite moments from the trip. 

Brandon had bought Charlotte some mini playing cards at a gift shop on Orcas Island the day before. She and Lydia and Veronica played go fish.  Veronica had a little toy bunny and was pretending the bunny was playing go fish.

Brandon and I packed up camp and the girls kids headed down to the water to play on the shore. Derrick was in a sad mood. He was disappointed we hadn't seen whales and he was also a little home sick.  He just wanted to sit in the car and kept asking when we were going home. I told him we were started to go home today, but we wouldn't be home until Saturday. We looked at the picture schedule I'd drawn for our trip. That helped.

When everything was packed Brandon, Derrick and I joined the girls by the water.  The tide had gone out and the girls were climbing on some rocks. They found a star fish.

It was a PURPLE star fish. I had no idea starfish could be purple. 

Here's a look across the water. 

Later the girls spotted a yellow starfish or something poking out of the rocks. 

And there was a clam or muscle in this tide pool, but the camera had a hard time focusing on it for some reason. 

This is looking toward the southwest.

I was able to use the cameras zoom to see buildings across the water on Victoria Island in Canada.

Brandon and I sat on a bench while the kids played and explored.  We were still hoping for a last minute appearance of an Orca.

I realized why Orcas are black and white.  There are all sorts of black and white spots in the water as the sun reflects off the surface. During our whole time on the island I'd keep thinking I saw something that looked like a whale.  But no, my eyes were playing tricks on me.  This lump of seaweed looked very whale like from far away, but with the zoom on my camera I could tell it was nothing.

Here are Brandon and I together. I think this is the first time I've worn pigtails in over a decade.

This bird with a colorful beak looked really cool.

Here are the kids playing in the little bay.

I had a timer set for when it was time to leave. About 2 minutes before the timer went off the kids came up from the little bay. I think someone had been hurt, but I can't remember exactly so it must not have been too bad. We all started walking back up to our car. 

We got in the car and started the first leg our our long journey home.  Our goal for the day was the State Park a little sough of Seattle. 

But first we needed to drive back to Friday Harbor on the other side of San Juan Island. As we were driving we noticed a car stopped in front of us. They'd stopped for an animal in the road.

At first we thought it was a dog, but then realized it was a black fox. I have like three favorite animals and foxes are one of them so this made me super happy.

We drove into Friday Harbor and got in line for our ferry. Since this was a return trip we didn't have to pay. Our reservation was for 12:10 and so we needed to be in line between 11:10 and 11:25. I think we were there around 11:15.

Since we had such a long wait until it was time to board the ship I took Charlotte and Lydia on a walk around Friday Harbor. We went down to a dock area. There were some shops and we were looking for a souvenir or two. But Charlotte and Lydia kept getting attached to things like stuffed animals. We have TONS of stuffed animals at home and I wasn't interested in buying four here and then trying to keep them nice on a three day drive home. So we just went and walked around outside.

Here's a look at the ferry terminal.

The marina.

There was a little building on the end of a pier. It had a salt water tank in it with fish life.

Here's a star fish.

And a sea cucumber.

And I'm not sure what this was.

The building had a cool mural made out of tile.

This is a look back at Friday Harbor from the pier.

We had seen a tube of plastic sea animals at the gift shop. And the more I thought about it the more I realized it would be a good souvenir. It was small so it wouldn't take up a ton of room and there were enough pieces that we could split it up among the kids so they could each have something. So we went back to the shop and bought it.  It was $12 and had 12 little animals. Back at the car we let the kids pick their pieces like they were picking teams. Each of the kids ended up with 3 little toys. And because I've learned a thing or two as a parent I took pictures of the kids with their toys so I could have photographic proof of who was the original owner of each toy. Here's Charlotte's.

Lydia's.

Derrick's.

and Veronica's.

The kids spent the next 20 or so minutes of our wait for the ferry playing with their toys together. I'm so glad we had those toys. The toys made the wait really enjoyable.  Here's a little bit of what the kids did with the toys. 

There was a big truck blocking our view of the harbor so once again we didn't know when the ferry arrived. All of a sudden it was time to load into the ferry. We were directed to a spot on the side once again. Charlotte really had to go to the bathroom so we headed upstairs to the passenger deck to use the restroom. Then we went to watch the ferry pull away from San Juan Island.  

This was our 4th ferry ride in as many days so we weren't as enthusiastic as we had been in the past. It was also really cold and windy on the outdoor decks.  So we found an indoor spot that was at the front of the boat. We could still watch the scenery, but we didn't get up and move around quite as much as we had on other rides. Here's our family chill out selfie.

The did go out on the outdoor deck a few times.  And Derrick and I went and watched us dock at Lopez Island. I really enjoyed watching walk on passengers and car disembark and then other walk on passengers and cars come aboard. There was a huge semi truck that loaded onto the ferry at Lopez Island. Watching a semi truck load into a ferry really gives you an idea of the size of these vessels.

The ride back to Anacortes was long. We let the kids play with our phones and there are a bunch of pictures like this.

After a while we decided to finish the rest of the ride in the car.

We had a good view of the water from our car. Here's a little video of that.


We arrived in Anacortes and drove off the ferry for the last time. I'd used the GPS to located a Fred Meyer in Burlington which was on our way to Seattle so that's where we headed first. There were some cool mountains off in the distance.

We went to Fred Meyer and Lydia and I went grocery shopping. We were nearly out of all snack food and we needed to buy more fresh food for the next few days. Stopping at a store on this day had always been part of the plan. What I hadn't planned for was how crowded the store would be at 3:00 PM on a Thursday.  There were people everywhere (all wearing masks, of course.) Lydia and I felt like we were in the middle of some crazy contest trying to find all the food on our list in an unfamiliar store. It wasn't until we were checking out and the cashier made a comment about how everyone was stocking up for the weekend that I realized why it was so crazy. It was the day before the start of the Holiday Weekend. The 4th of July fell on a Saturday this year which meant Friday was a day off for many people. Everyone was getting ready for the long weekend.

Brandon and I hadn't come up with anything for lunch and so he'd suggested I "just buy some rolls, we all love rolls." So that's what we had for "lunch" at 3:00 as we drove toward Seattle. The kids were super happy about that. (Any time I let them eat plain bread they think it's the greatest thing ever.)  I'd decided that we hadn't had enough oreos yet on this trip so I'd let Lydia pick out a package. She picked chocolate marshmallow flavored ones. They were pretty good.

We drove south to Seattle and took some interesting turns in order to avoid traffic congestion.  The whole way down I was debating whether we should make a stop at the University of Washington campus. Last year I read Boys in the Boat which was about the rowing team from the University of Washington that won the gold medal in the 1936 Olympics.  It's a fabulous book and I wanted to see the Shell House where the "boys" trained as well as maybe get a look at the boat they raced in - the Husky Clipper.  But I just wasn't sure if the stop would be worth my time. Thanks to our odd route we would have to cross a toll bridge over Lake Washington.

Brandon said he didn't mind the detour and honestly we love crossing cool bridges so that's what we did.

We followed the GPS's instructions to the Shell House. The instructions took us right to the water's edge, but all the buildings I could see were very modern. Where was the Shell House?  I could see some boats by the water so I hopped out of the car and did some quick recon.

I headed in the direction of all these boats stacked up together.

And then I saw the Shell House!

I wasn't able to get into the building but it was cool to see even the outside of it.  There was a sign tallking about plans to make the Shell House more of a museum where the handmade boats made by George Pocock could be on display for generations. Maybe I'll have to plan an official trip to the Shell House when all that is complete.

Here's a picture of the winning team. And really you should read Boys in the Boat if you haven't read it yet. It's excellent.

I liked imagining the boys walking down to this water.

And then rowing out to practice racing.

I kind of want to read the whole book again now that I'd seen this place and know a little bit more about the layout.

I hadn't planned on finding the dining hall where the Husky Clipper is currently displayed. I'd assumed that the campus would be closed and so it would be impossible to get into the building.  Instead I didn't go see the boat for another reason. The campus was actually FULL of students.  Traffic was crazy and it looked like all the parking lots were enforcing strict parking rules. This was not the time to be wandering around an unfamiliar college campus with a family in tow. 

Brandon got us back on the Freeway and we kept going south.

We passed by Seattle and Derrick kept saying, "Look at the tall buildings." This might be one of the biggest cities the kids have ever seen. It's certainly the biggest one they've seen since we moved back west. 

We passed by Boeing and then Seatac Airport. Seatac was huge.

Then we exited and followed the GPS to Saltwater State Park. There wasn't anyone working at the welcome booth, nor at the campground but I had my reservation paperwork and so I knew we were in site 15. We found that and started setting up the tent. We were all thrilled by the spot for the tent. It was level, dry, and soft.  We hadn't had those three things at the same time since our first campsite at Ocean City State Park several days earlier.

According to our menu we were having Taco Salad for dinner. But we'd decided we'd rather have pizza. I'm so glad we'd decided that.  There was no way I could have hunted down all the ingredients for taco salad at the crowded grocery store. Brandon and Derrick went to buy pizza and I stayed at the campground with the girls. They made an elaborate aquarium on the picnic table for their sea creature toys. 

It was so cute to watch them play.

This thing was pretty impressive by the time they were done.

Brandon came back with the pizza and we dug in. We joked that the campers around us must think we were the laziest campers ever. Little did they know this was our 6th night camping and 5th night in a new spot.

This state park is in the flight path for the airport so there were planes taking off and flying over us every few minutes.  This had been in the description of the park when I made the reservation so I wasn't surprised. I'd known that everyone in my family would actually enjoy watching the planes.  And I was right. 

After we were done eating we headed down the road to the day use area of the park which was by the shore of the Puget Sound. We walked under this cool bridge. 

Charlotte found a giant Maple leaf.

The day use area was really pretty.

The kids liked crossing this log bridge. 

Here's Lydia showing off some shells that she found - but that she wasn't allowed to keep.

I'm not sure my kids will ever get sick of playing by water.

This was our 6th evening spent by the water.

Here's some sort of sea creature.

Veronica found a volley ball area with lots of sand and spent a lot of time playing there. 

Derrick wanted me to walk on the trail to see where it went. 

It ended at a dead end.

But look at that view.

Everyone was sleepy after about an hour by the shore so we headed back to the campground. On the way we passed this giant slug. 

We got back to camp and Brandon helped the kids get ready for bed and put them to sleep. I needed some alone time so I cleaned out the car and got things ready for the next day. I was planning to take a shower in the morning so I found the token machine and got some tokens so I'd be ready the next morning.

It felt good to climb into the tent and into my sleeping bag. This was the last camping night of our trip. I was glad we were finishing it at a spot that was so comfortable.