San Juan Islands, WA

Last year Orrin was in charge of the big High Adventure trip for the scouts in the ward. They took a week long bike trip around the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington State. Since he has came home he has been talking about going back and taking us with him. We decided to go on his last week of summer break before fall term started. We had some friends also join us which made the trip extra fun. We wanted to camp on the island, and as we got closer to the trip I was getting nervous that it was to close to rainy season here and that we were going to be wet and cold the whole trip. We came prepared with rain coats, rain boots, pop up canapes, towels, and prepared to be wet. It started to rain on our drive out to the ferry but stopped after we got on and it stayed clear and beautiful the whole trip. It was amazing.

The ferry trips were the boys most favorite part of the trip. I have to say it was pretty cool to drive our car on to a boat. We were able to get out and walk around, or run as the boys did. The views of the ocean and the other islands were so beautiful.

Wesley was so excited to drive onto the ferry.

We camped on San Juan Island at Lakedale Resort. It was really nice because we had most of the place to our selves (summer season was over). The first night we set up camp and explored around the campsite. The next morning we had a wonderful breakfast.

Then headed out to explore more of the Island. Orrin was our tour guide and showed us the dry side of the Island.

It was really weird going from very lush vegetation and then in a few minutes of driving to every thing being dry and brown. Orrin said that they have the same thing in Puerto Rico.

We spent most of the day at Lime Kiln Park. Which I read is one of the best places in the world to see orcas from land. While we were there we were able to see in the far distant Victoria, Canada. We really wanted to see some whales so we tried to stay as long as we could to see them. There were some people we meet there that had said they usually always see them when they come. We were also getting updates from further down the island that said that they were on there way but they never came. We did still have lots of fun playing there by the water. We found clams, star fish, some sea lions, kyaykers, scuba divers (that came up to say hi), and a mouse. The biggest hit for the boys was the mouse. They were able to capture it in one of their boots and feed it some chips from lunch. Freaked me out.

This is the only whale we saw on the trip.


The next day we wanted to visit another Island on our way home. We had woke up later than we had planned so we had to rush packing and taking down the campsite.


I really didn't think we would make the ferry. It was the only ferry that day to take us to that Island so if we missed it we would just have to take the ferry home. I still don't know how we made it, but we did. We then had to eat breakfast on the ferry which worked out for the better.

So we headed to Orcas Island . Orrin wanted to take us to this Island because it had the tallest mountains ( Mount Constitution) on it of all the Islands with a great view. The trip driving up the mountain was so beautiful. Our friends, the Monahans, were great at spotting all deer on the way up but we never seemed to see any. At the top of the mountain there is a tower that you can climb to the top to check out the view. It looked like an old castle and the boys has a blast climbing up and down it.

The trip was so much fun. We had a wonderful tour guide, my amazing husband that planned most of the trip even down to what to eat (because I was not feeling to good to do by my self). Great Weather! We also had great company, thanks to the Monahans for joining us. We had a blast!

check out a map of the Islands HERE