San Juan Island Getaway

We escaped to the San Juan Islands without too much of a plan for a Pacific Northwest adventure.  We headed out on Thursday night and went up to Arlington to stay at a motel.  The ferry from the “mainland” always fills up fast and we were warned to get there very early, we were glad we did.  We put our car in line and found out our first island was going to be Orcas Island. Once on Orcas Island we took a much detoured route to a beautiful lunch stop.  The islands do not lack beauty and we lucked out with a gorgeous 1st day to our trip.  After lunch we headed over to the beach to run around and explore.  We stumbled upon the Judd Cove Oyster operation and I headed out at low tide to ask a few questions.  They told me that although the oysters don’t naturally reproduce in the waters because they it is too cold, it is a perfect place to place them and let them grow into maturity.  After our play time we headed back over to the ferry line to head to the main island, San Juan Island, as it was our final stop on the trip. The ferry ride again was gorgeous and when we pulled up to Friday Harbor we had 2 sleeping kiddos.  We drove to the far side of the island to look for whales.  We would later find out that as we drove past people did see some Minke Whales swimming by.  It was the only whale sighting the entire time we were there, sigh, maybe next time!  After trying our luck at spotting a whale we went to our camping spot for the night, at the Lakedale Resort. We had a canvas tent reserved for some “glamping.”  It was nice to pull up to the campsight and see that we didn’t have to set up the tent!  After unloading the guys tried their hand at fishing while Elin and I watched and played in the grass.  Mike and Thomas caught several small mouth bass and Thomas held a fish for the first time!  Watching the boys and their smiles was priceless.  After fishing we had a fire for dinner and s’mores before crawling into bed. When we woke up we again went fishing and then headed out for the day.  We first stopped at the Krystal Acres Alpaca farm to see the Alpacas.  It was anticlamatic and then we were on our way.  We then stumbled upon the Pelinda Lavendar farm.  I hopped out of the car quick to enjoy the smells and take a few pictures. We then continued on to Lime Kiln Park where we spent the rest of the morning exploring and hoping we would see some whales.   We never did spot the whales but we did see a harbor seal, hermit crabs, and many other little critters as we hopped the rocks and explored the tide pools.  After I gave up on seeing the whales we headed back to Friday Harbor for a yummy lunch overlooking the marina and ferry terminal.  After lunch we went to the Whale Museum to learn more about the Southern Resident Orca Whales.  Too quickly we were headed out on the ferry back to Seattle.  The San Juan Islands were stunningly beautiful and it was a great little getaway for our family.