Our adventure began at 3:30 in the morning on 13 July to
celebrate our 31st wedding anniversary. We decided to fly up to the Pacific
Northwest, get a rental car, drive north about two hours to Anacortes, hop on
the ferry with the car and float across the upper regions of the Salish sea to
Orcas Island, one of the largest islands in the San Juan island chain of the
Pacific Northwest.
Landing in Seattle at about 0800, we moved through baggage claim
and the rental car chaos in pretty quick order.
On the road by 0900, it was bumper-to-bumper traffic heading into
Seattle with a population of 3 million.
It took about an hour and a half to get through Seattle and then we were
cruising north on I5 towards Anacortes. Stopped at Brianna’s café, Marysville
Washington for a little bit of breakfast.
After breakfast, we continued our track North and arrived in Anacortes about noon. We took a ride out to the ferry terminal to see if we could catch an earlier ferry over to Orcas Island; that was a big no. We drove back to historic downtown Anacortes and hung out for a couple of hours. Walked through the town, looked at some antique shops, and then finished our swift visit at Bob’s Chowder House for some New England clam chowder. It was awesome, with a pint of dark beer from a brewery in Yakima, Washington as a compliment. Kimble? She wasn’t hungry (Briana’s was very filling at 1000hrs).
We headed back out to the ferry terminal and were still a little bit early, so we simply parked in line and caught our breath. The ferry began boarding at about 1545 and by 1700 we disembarked on Orcas Island for our short 5-mile drive north to East sound where we were staying at the Landmark Inn.
Another laugh filled adventure. Can't always get everything you plan for but you certainly can plan to get it all. We will continue our pursuit of our beautiful National Parks. I think we have visited about 15 so far, maybe more, but who's counting. We are blessed with the opportunity our incredible country provides; even with the barriers as set fort by ignorant, self-serving politicians.
Check-in was smooth and easy. No keys! The digital entry (21st Century for sure) used our phone numbers as entry codes. Nice. It was a beautiful room overlooking the Eastsound of Orcas Island.
As our MO dictates, we decided to go adventuring and walk through town and check things out. Get a lay of the land. Restaurants, grocery, museums, etc. After gathering some groceries for the room, we ended up at an Irish Pub for dinner. Right on the bay, great view and a $150 meal for two. Okay, we are on an island. Our expectations were established on costs. However, the meal was incredible.
It was about 2000hrs and we turned in because we had been up for about 18 hours and would start the next day fresh, Friday 14th of July, to begin checking out the island.
Day 2 -
This day began slowly as nothing really opened for breakfast until 0800 so we decided to order room service. A delivery for breakfast! We began the adventure about 0930 with the intent to explore the Westside of Orcas Island.
One of my typical digressions… There are only about six main roads on the entire island. None of them connect. They all dead end so for our first foray we decided to take Crow Valley Road down to the West Sound area, continuing to Deer Harbor; the end of the road. We simply just walked around the marinas taking in the beautiful day. Lots of boats, seaplanes, coves and wonderful forested scenery. It gave us a great idea of what island life was like.
Heading back toward East Sound, we ran into a winery that was really hidden heading south but it was a bit more obvious heading north. However, we still had to do a U-turn because it was not that obvious. The Orcas Island Winery. No I’m not much for wine but it looked like a neat little adventure. We walked into the tasting room and it was nicely decorated with local art and had a professionally displayed wine bar and bar back. We decided to stay and taste. They had a nice assortment of breads, crackers, veggies, and cheese so we made this our lunch. We
enjoyed several wines for about an hour and a half. Leaving we were still in exploration mode and up the road was a historical building. The Crow Valley school museum was one of the first schools on Orcas Island. Established in1888 we talked to the Docent and experienced what school was like over 100 years ago on Orcas. Still being a bit exhausted from the previous day and wanting to enjoy the evening, we cruised back to the room for a little siesta break before continuing in the afternoon.
As East Sound was only about 2-miles to the north end of the island, Kimble and I decided we would just take a nice little walk and see the town of East Sound more thoroughly and walk to the north most point of Orcas and see what was up there. At the end of the road, N. Beach Rd., was a little beach about 30 feet wide. To the left, private property to the right private property so we kind of just hung out there for a bit took some pictures of Mount Baker and then headed our way back to the room for dinner. Not much to report. We decided to order dinner in from Madrona which was incredible. Lots of seafood up here. Not cheap, but really, really good. Drink a bottle of wine we bought earlier at the Orcas Winery and call it a day.
Saturday morning the 15th in complete consistency with our desire to just chill and relax. We finally walked to breakfast at the Islands Skillet at about 9:30 AM; seated about 10. The pace here is very relaxed; they promote “Island Time” kind of like Hawaii or the Caribbean. Seems like many of the tourists don’t get this. We simply ignored them. Half an hour wait for breakfast, so what! We sat outside in the shade. Had a nice breakfast and then headed off to explore the eastern side of the island where Moraine State Park was located.
The drives really are beautiful. Lots of green, lots of forest, very fresh air. A great environment here at sea level surrounded by water. As we drove south along the west side of Orcas Island, we went to Mount Constitution which is the highest point in all the islands of the San Juan de Fuca chain. At 2400 feet plus we had a great view from up there, as we headed down, we stopped at Mountain Lake and went for a couple mile walk just to kind of check out the very clear water and swimmable lake. There were several swimmers enjoying the water.
As we headed out along Mount Constitution Road we had to make a choice; Kim actually made it. Do we head further south and explore all the areas that we could explore down in the southern part of the eastern side of the island or head back and come back in the evening. Kim made the right call. Keep exploring.
So as we headed south along the east side of Orcas Island we went to the end of the road and ended up in Doe Bay Faced with “Private” and “No Trespassing” signs, we turned and headed back to explore north along the way. There’s a lot of private land and private roads on Orcas Island and you get to a certain point where the signs say turn your ass around! Don’t go any further so we used that as our “sign”. Go the other way. We had explored all that we could up to Buck Bay and it was about 1600 hours. We decided it was time to eat and there was a place in Bucks Bay that we wanted to try. It was called the Buck’s Bay shellfish farm located in Olga.
However, along the way, we forgot there was one more state park. We needed to go see, and that was Obstruction Pass. At the southern tip of the eastern side of Orcas, this is a “passage” between the island to the south, Lopez Island; basically a narrows and the channels between the two islands was too narrow and shallow for big boats to pass; obstruction.
It was a nice campground right on the beach. They had moorings as private campsites and toilet facilities. A nice area and several people were enjoying the great weather. This whole area was created 12,000 years ago by heavy glaciation. The campground was once under a thousand feet of ice. Great…we are hungry. Off to find the Bucks Bay Shellfish farm.
What a great experience. The shellfish farm was incredible. We had scallops, corn & potato chowder,
crab, macaroni and cheese, halibut, fish, and chips and deep-fried oysters. Good thing it was a late lunch early dinner because we were full for the rest of the evening. It certainly was not the most healthy meal but “F” it, it was great!
We got back to the hotel about 1700 and “called it” for Orcas Island. We finished up our bottle of wine and chilled. Packing for an early morning departure we realized that two days on Orcas Island was the perfect amount of time to see, relax and enjoy.
Day 3 –
Sunday morning 16 of July and we’re sitting on the ferry boat. We are heading back to Anacortes after a “zero 600” exit the room; always early. My poor wife has to deal with my early OCD but there is always a plan! As we sat in line to board the ferry we had the opportunity to look around Orcas Village. Seems it’s up for sale. 7.2 million.
Our destination for today is Olympic National Park; this visit will add to our list of National Parks visited. The early start is because we have an interesting navigation ahead. Once we get back to Anacortes, we have to drive south for about 45 minutes to a little town called Coupeville; then another wait for a ferry to go across the channel to Port Townsend. Once we get to Port Townsend then will head to Port Angeles which skirts the northern edge of Olympic National Park, which is quite mountainous with a range over 6000 feet of elevation right at the edge of the Juan de Fuca Straight that is fed from the Pacific Ocean.
Because we wanted to maximize the time in Olympic National Park we grabbed supplies from Safeway and continued motoring west to Olympic National Park. Without any wasted time we arrived at the Park about 1:15 in the afternoon. It was closed. Unbelievable. The park was closed because they ran out of toilets. Kimble and I pay a considerable amount of federal tax every year not to mention my company and partners and our government can’t even keep our national parks open for visitors. So frustrating but we managed to get a few pictures from its edges.
With no other options and a flight at about midnight, we decided we would just head back towards the airport. We drove down the highway taking us over Hoods Canal (where I was certified as a SCUBA diver in 1979). We passed over its floating bridge and then further down the road was the Tacoma Narrows Bridge; quite a history for this bridge! It was a beautiful day and we saw Mount Rainier in all its majesty standing high above Seattle.
The Sunday that I had planned for Olympic National Park turned out to be 12 hours in the vehicle and a delayed departure by Alaska Air getting us home at 3am Monday morning. All part of the adventure! Adventures we will continue to pursue.
We leave you with a photo that sums up our final day...
