San Juan Island

For my birthday, we celebrated by spending yesterday on San Juan Island.  The kids had never been on a ferry before and we'd never been to any of the San Juan Islands, so we were very excited. Here's our San Juan Island trip (mostly in pictures).  

We got up at the crack of dawn, well... it felt like the crack of dawn, to get on the ferry.  This picture was taken while we were in line waiting to drive onto the ferry.  This is Anacortes.

We had about an hour of waiting in this "driveway" like parking lot. 

We watched the ferry to Canada take off.  Our ferry would be next. 

 Driving onto our ferry!

So excited to be on the ferry at last! 

 

We had a nice view of Mt. Baker and the Northern Cascade Mountain Range as we left.  Thankfully the fog burned off by then.

Driving past a small community on Lopez Island...

a small community, with their own little airport.  

After about an hour on the ferry, we got our first glimpse at Friday Harbor, on San Juan Island.  

Pulling into Friday Harbor.  I took one last quick picture and then hurried back to the car.  It would be time to unload soon.  

So many boats.  Friday Harbor.  From here you can find boat taxis to take you to the smaller islands that don't have ferry service.  We didn't do that though.

Cool sailing vessel in Friday Harbor.  Had to get a picture of it.  

I only had two places on San Juan Island that I really wanted to see.  The rest of the time was just going to be looking around and seeing what we could find.  

One of the places I wanted to see is called Cattle Point Lighthouse.  We decided to go there first since it was closer to town.  Then we'd have lunch back in town before going to the other lighthouse.  

Parking is up on a plateau, overlooking the water, with Cattle Point Lighthouse being a little dot across the water.  

Finding a way down to the beach at Cattle Point Lighthouse.  

They made it!

All of us loved walking and climbing all over the rocks along the shoreline.  It was so much fun.  No plans, no timeline, no schedule, just wander until we felt we were finished (or got hungry, which is what happened).  

 

Getting closer.  

  Taylor lead us over a meadow of wildflowers to the lighthouse.  

 After Cattle Point Lighthouse, we headed back to Friday Harbor and walked around until we found a place to eat.  Then it was off to Lime Kiln Lighthouse.  I couldn't believe how fast the day was flying by. 

Lime Kiln Lighthouse is known for it's whale watching.  They actually have a biologist on location, tracking and recording all kinds of data, such as water temp. and number of boats on the water, besides whale sightings. 

Speaking of whale sightings, we were told while we were there that there had not been any whales for several days, and then they all of a sudden just showed up the night before and then again at about 11am that morning.  

Awesome.  We were at the other lighthouse at 11am that morning.  If we would have gone straight to that lighthouse first, we would have seen orca whales, up close.  

We were bummed, but how were we to know.  We had no way of knowing.  They said that they expected them back that evening, but we'd be back on the ferry at that time.  

  We had so much fun.  The whole day was great.  We got some ice cream cones and salt water taffy and said good-bye to San Juan. 

 Back on the ferry again. 

"Good-bye, we'll miss you!"

View from the ferry on the way back.  Why do ferry rides always feel like they take twice as long on the way back?  Maybe it's just that I was hoping it would take half as long, and I ended up disappointed in that. 

Well, it was still the best family day ever!  It was exactly what I wanted for my birthday.  I couldn't have asked for better!  Thank you to my family for a fantastic day.  I love you all so much!