Today we decided to head over to Orcas Island, the other large island in the San Juan archipelago. Our hippie guide had told us that this island was far less touristy than San Juan Island, and so Libby and I had high hopes for this trip. We got up reasonably early, and caught the rusty-sided inter-island ferry for what we thought would be a quick hop over to Orcas Island; after all, we could see it from our island just across a small straight.

We soon found that we were slightly mistaken. The ferry ride was short, in distance at least. We couldn’t have gone more than a couple of miles as the crow flies. But due to the twisted nature of the waters in the islands, with scores of tiny islets, hidden rocks, and twisting channels, it took us nearly an hour to arrive. In the meantime, we got to enjoy a leisurely morning cruise past all sorts of nature preserves, as our ferry carefully picked its way from one safe channel to another.

Upon arriving, we drove off the island and eagerly headed to the first town we saw on the island map. Here we found a very cute town with lots of little cafes, a good bookstore, and a nice farmers market / whole foods store. Our first stop was at the book store, where we both picked up several books and magazines for the beach. We then explored a little bit, and settled down at a cafe that looked promising for lunch. After eating, we continued looking around the town, eventually buying our first souvenirs of the trip (at least, souvenirs that aren’t vampire related).

After we were finished looking at the town, we decided to head out towards the next town on our map – the largest one shown in fact, to see what it was like. We planned to continue on from there to a nearby state park for some hiking. It soon became apparent that something was wrong, however, as my navigator kept on telling me to take streets that didn’t exist, and a small squabble erupted as I mostly ignored those directions. I figured that turning onto imaginary streets was a poor idea, and that if we just continued in the right general direction we would eventually find a street name we recognized. Eventually we realized what our problem was: we hadn’t been in the right town to begin with. We’d actually overshot the first town we’d planned to go to, and had already been in the largest town on the island. This simplified things greatly, and we continued on towards the state park that we were already nearly in.

Once in the state park, we followed the signs for the small mountain that was the centerpiece of the park, and the largest mountain on the island. Here my navigator started having issues again, as we had to pick our way up a narrow, one and a half lane road to reach the trail head. I chose to ignore the screams of terror, however, and continued on towards the top. When we reached the parking lot, we hopped out and headed up the short path to the top and the observation tower built there. From the tower we had amazing views of all sides of the island, and got some great pictures of Mount Baker looming over us, Victoria in the distance with the Olympic mountains behind it, and even a few shots of Mount Rainier way off in the distance. We both agreed that it wasn’t quite as exciting or fulfilling driving to the top of the mountain instead of hiking, but having it accessible to everyone was worth the trade off.

After the harrowing drive down from Mount Constitution (mostly harrowing because of the incessant screaming by my passenger), we headed on to Doe Bay to check out the resort that had been recommended there. When we arrived we found a small, quiet collection of cabins, a large camping ground, some Yurts, and a great cliff-side view of the ocean, with a nice rock beach and lots of small tide pools. We sat on a bench by the ocean for a while, enjoying the breeze, before deciding to try out the soaking pools and sauna that overlooked the ocean. Given the source of the recommendation for these pools, and the presence of the Yurts at the resort, we should have known to be wary. It wasn’t until we got there, however, that we realized the pools were clothing optional. Since we were already changed, and it was during family hour, we decided to risk it. Sure enough, there was a small family with young children already present, and fully clothed. This reassured us somewhat, and after showering and sitting in the sauna for a little bit, we hopped into one of the pools. It was very relaxing, with the smell of the salt water drifting in off the ocean, and the trees all around us. Before long, however, our relaxation was brought to an abrupt end as several men came in, and jumped into the pool with us. Both had to decided to let it all hang out, as they say, and Libby was less than pleased to be sharing a bench with them. After waiting just long enough to not be rude, we got out and headed to the changing room.

Following our close encounter with nature at the soaking pools, we decided that it was time to head back to the hotel. We got to the terminal with plenty of time to catch the last ferry off, and after a short wait we headed back to San Juan Island.

Signing off,

Fully Clothed Lib and Soaking Steven

Travel question of the day: Do you think its just coincidence that every activity on this island is $95 for 3 hours?

There’s a time in your travels when your clothes are wrinkled, they stink, you can’t eat out for one more meal, you miss your bed and long a bit for home. That was today. The homesickness bug hit both Steven and I at the same time. We moped around. We read our books and wrote in our hotel room. But then we realized that we were on an island and there was not the time to be moping. So I decided to do would any reasonable person would do, find a hippie and ask where the cool non touristy spots on this island are. Luckily one such folk happened to be working at the front desk. Having felt deflated by my island hopes and getting no sleep thanks to the karaoke at the bar across the street and the bar brawl literally outside my window, I dragged myself to the front desk of the hotel with dark circles and bags under my eyes. I told the lady that I came to the island to hike, bike, and see wildlife and I am not dealing well with the tourist/bar fanfare. She smiled, pulled out a map and put her thumb down. She said, “See my thumb?” I nodded. “That is covering the tourist section of this island. Everything else is the island.” She grabbed a pen and started circling places to visit like Fourth of July Beach, Jackel’s Lagoon, Grandma’s Bay, and Eagle Cove. She continued by explaining the best places to skinny dip should it strike my fancy. With new found hope Steven and set off in our car to see the most fantastic view of the sun setting with Mt. Baker in the distance. Having left Friday Harbor behind it was unbelievable to think that most tourists would not leave the kitchy downtown entertainment to explore the natural wonders of the actual island. We first headed towards Fourth of July Beach, what was supposed to be one of the most beautiful beaches on the island. Unfortunately, when we got there we found the parking lot overrun by what I’m sure were rabid foxes. Out of nowhere they had surrounded our car. Steven was all for hopping out and going to the beach still; he was sure they would be afraid of him. I convinced him otherwise though, and we set off to the next beach. The sun setting around the islands with the mountains in the distance was a beautiful site. We arrived at the next beach, South Beach, and proceeded to walk along it as the sun set. Of course, the foxes had followed us, but by this point we were already walking so we just picked up some rocks in case they got too close. After watching the sun set, we headed back to the hotel.

PS-You know you’ve been on vacation too long when you begin to be asked directions to places by other people, and worse, you know the answers.

Off to make the most of our trip,

Hippie appreciating Libby and Hippie smelling Steven

Our morning began a little slowly today, as we tried to recover from the effects of the long drive yesterday and the loud town noises outside our window last night. We stumbled down to our breakfast, and while eating noticed that our hotel had beach cruiser bikes, similar to what we had used for our wedding, available for guest use. We decided that a bike tour of Friday Harbor would be a fun way to begin our stay on the island, so after finishing up, we hopped on the bikes and headed into town. What we hadn’t counted on was the island being quite so hilly, or our bikes being set up with a gear more appropriate for the flats of Indiana. The single gear was so hard that even pedaling in the few flats we found wasn’t easy, so we found ourselves grinding our way up every hill at a snails pace. Even more troubling was how weak the coaster brake in the rear was, as each downhill became a struggle to avoid a high speed crash. Worst of all, we didn’t really become aware of the full extent of the problem until we were on a six mile scenic loop, and we were too stubborn to give up on our imagined “pleasant coastal ride” until we were nearly halfway through the loop. Deciding that we might as well finish the loop, we continued on, priding ourselves at least on our ability to pass a small family of fellow hotel guests who had made the same mistake. They were walking their bikes up a particularly steep hill, which we disdained to do, confident in our bike riding prowess. Of course, three quarters of the way up the hill Steven’s chain popped off the bike from too much strain. We then got to watch as the small family happily walked past us, mounted their bikes, and rode off while Steven struggled to fix his bike.

The Zodiac

With our bike ride complete, we decided to try out one of the whale watching tours the island is famous for. We opted for the tour on the smaller boat after learning that this was the “adventure” tour; we would have to wear wet suits and would be tearing around the ocean at high speed. We left our larger camera behind because we had been informed that we would get a lot of water sprayed on us, and everything we didn’t want to get wet had to be stashed under our wetsuits. When we arrived at the tour company our excitement mounted as we found that we would be wearing not wetsuits but cold water survival suits. The suits were huge. They covered us from ankle to neck and contained inflation compartments along with areas that could retain body heat. Our boat for the adventure was a Zodiac similar to what is used by the Coast Guard. Steven and I were chosen to sit in the front of the boat; which was the adventurous seat in which we would get sprayed and jostled “like a cowboy”. We took an hour long boat ride around the islands to get to a prime location for the whales. The scenery, as we are finding on our travels, was stunning. The boat zipped along at extremely fast speeds but in our monkey suits we felt safe. We did not, however, get even get a drop of water on our suits by the time we reached the Canadian border. At this point the suit had managed to retain every drop of sweat inside and became less of a novelty.

Boats are required to stay about 100 yards away from the Orcas, but the Orcas are 25 feet long and are well seen from the distance. It was pretty cool to see the whales coming up to take breaths and then diving again. We soon learned that you could tell the females and males apart, as the males have much larger dorsal fins. After a while we even got to see several young Orcas playing, with one even breaching out of the water several times. Our naturalist guide told us all sorts of interesting information about the whales: this particular pod only eats salmon, for instance, and that the population of whales in the San Juan islands was almost wiped out in the seventies because of capturing for aquariums until it was discovered how small the population actually is (there are only about 150 Orcas in the area). It was also interesting to see that she could identify all the individual whales with just a glance from the distance, based on their dorsal fins and markings. This allowed her to give us a quick history of all the animals we were seeing. Grandma, the matriarch of the pod, is 99 years old right now, and still going strong.

After drifting along with the whales for an hour and a half or so, we turned and headed back for shore. Along the way we stopped by several small islands that were wildlife preserves to catch some glimpses of harbor seals and bald eagles. Once back on the wharf, we gratefully pulled off our sweat soaked suits, feeling sorry for the next user, and headed off to explore the island some more.

We used our hotel map to wander the island in our car. Being the navigator was a bit frustrating until I realized our map was not to scale but was a Disney World type of map. Exhausted, we decided to head back to the Bird Rock.

Off to snooze,

Orca observing Steven and Still dry in my survival suit Libby

Travel question of the day: How much trouble is the guy in that was using the whale watching binoculars to check out a bikini clad woman on a yacht while sitting in the zodiac with his wife and mother and father in law?

Our Garmin wasn't quite sure what to make of a ferry trip

Today was mainly a traveling day. We drove to Port Townsend and took a ferry to Whidbey Island. I had never been on a ferry and found it pretty fascinating that you can drive your car onto the boat, park it, and walk around. I was a bit worried about the car going over the edge but have learned to trust Steven’s driving skills. On the way through Whidbey Island we stopped at Fort Casey State Park. It was a naval base built at the turn of the century to defend Puget Sound, which was then used as a training base in WWI and WWII. It is interesting because from the coast the base is not visible. It is built into the bluffs and in case of an attack the large guns arehoisted above ground. It was actually very fascinating. Steven described how the guns work and gave a brief history of pertinent WWII information. After snapping some pictures, we continued our drive up through the island and found our second ferry for the day that would be taking us to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. We thought that we had arrived in plenty of time; we were over an hour early. We paid our fare, lined up for the ferry, and then the ferry ended up being full. Once you are in the line there is no way to leave so we had to sit in our car for the next three hours until the ferry returned. The end result of this was two somewhat grumpy and uncomfortable people sitting still in a hot car for four hours and going nowhere. On the bright side, we did get some more of our thank you cards done. Eventually the ferry returned, and we boarded for San Juan Island.

The ferry to Friday Harbor was massive, being capable of transporting 200 cars and 2,000 people at once. We ended being placed on the second deck ramp at the very end of the boat, pointing down towards the ocean. If Steven hit the gas instead of brake our dear rental would have been in the harbor. Terrified I managed by this point of the trip to keep my squeals under wrap. Once the ferry was under way we both hopped out and ran up to the upper deck of the ferry to take some more pictures and enjoy the cool air. After a while the excitement of being out of the car and up in the ocean breeze waned a little, and we headed into the passenger area to write more thank you cards and read a little. Finally, after an hour and half ferry ride, we made it onto San Juan island. (At this point we had been in the car for about 11 hours). We navigated our way right off the ramp and to our hotel, The Bird Rock Hotel. By now we were starving, as it was late in the evening and we hadn’t eaten anything since a hastily grabbed Subway sandwich 7 hours before. The Hunger was in full force for both Steven and I, and as usual when feeling its effects, we headed straight to the first place we saw that served food. It ended up being a greasy seafood shop. While getting fish and chips from a greasy waterfront stand made Steven happy, it left both of us a little queasy too. Of course, immediately after scarfing down our food, we walked around the corner and ran straight into a nice little cafe that would have been perfect, if only we’d had the will power to walk a little further. We have accepted for a long time that when the Hunger hits we aren’t capable of thinking properly, so we noted its location and headed back to bed.

On the island,

Mussel eating Steven and Clam devouring Libby

Traveling question of the day: If you get sick while in your car on a ferry would you consider it sea sickness or car sickness?

Day 10 began early, as we had to meet our kayaking instructor at 9:00 AM to catch the low tide for our trip to the Dungeness Lighthouse. It was too early to eat the three course breakfast on offer at our lodge, but we were given scones and yogurt by our somewhat eerie hostess instead, and then continued on to our day on the sea. After a short drive we pulled up in front of the instructor’s house, where he was busy lashing kayaks down to a trailer. We signed the by now expected waiver against death, injury, and loss of eternal soul, and then followed him down to to the spit to launch our boats. One quick (very quick) safety briefing later, and we were pulling on sea skirts, adjusting seats, and sliding into the two person kayak. It was at this point that I began to have an inkling that perhaps sea kayaking was not my cup of tea. The kayak had clearly not been designed with someone of my stature in mind, and I found that my feet were pressed into the bulkhead in front of me, with my legs locked into a semi-tensed position in an effort to keep them under the sea skirt. My fears were confirmed when our instructor came over and pointed out that I had to keep my feet on two foot pegs to control the boat’s rudder, which were a further 6 inches closer than the bulkhead, making my position downright painful. I nonetheless bravely soldiered on, and soon we were out in the shallow waters between the Dungeness spit and the smaller Clallam spit. My next discovery was that while controlling the kayak’s rudder appeared simple, it was actually quite difficult. Without being able to see the rudder, and with only a rough feel for whether my feet were applying equal pressure to the foot pegs, it was extremely difficult to keep the boat on a straight path. Add to that the fact that the kayak turned sharply with only the slightest rudder deflection, and I soon found that we were swinging wildly across the harbor like a drunken sailor. I eventually managed to get us pointed in roughly the direction our instructor had gone, and we zig-zagged our way across the water to the opening in the spit we were trying to paddle through. It was here that I found the final problem I have with kayaking – almost every sport I enjoy uses my legs, not my arms. Cycling? Legs. Running? Legs. Soccer? Legs – in fact you aren’t even allowed to touch the ball with your arms. Kayaking? All arms, all the way. Worse, I had apparently slept on my right side all night, and my right arm immediately began cramping up. We were only 15 minutes into our 3 hours of kayaking, and I wasn’t certain I’d even make it out of the boat launch area. Libby, meanwhile, was not proving to be the most sympathetic boat mate. My complaints about my aching arm fell on deaf ears, my problems with the fit of the boat were met with instructions to “man up”, and her response to my steering issues was: “How do I always get stuck with losers when I kayak?” – apparently her sea kayaking partner on her Outward Bound trip was utterly hopeless as well. On the plus side, she was only stuck in a boat with me for a couple of hours, instead of two weeks.

I slowly began to improve once we left the channel in between the spits, however, as my arms finally began to loosen up and the current we had unknowingly been fighting abated. I was beginning to enjoy the experience, with calm waters, easy paddling, and the sun shining through the fog, when I became aware of a different problem. Our guide, who was not the most sociable of people to begin with, had apparently grown tired of our slow progress and had decided to carry on without us; we could barely see him in the distance through the fog. Visibility was very poor at this point, and we could barely see the spit, let alone the mainland. We began paddling harder, hoping to catch him, but were not able to gain any ground. Finally, we began to catch up with him, and found him stopped near a marker. When we drew close, he shouted a piece of trivia about the portion of land we were near (the section of spit was called Graveyard spit, after a massacred party of Vancouver Indians slaughtered by a local tribe in the late 1800s), pointed out another buoy off in the distance as our next goal, and then once again left us. We soon figured out that this was his standard operating procedure; the guiding gig was merely a way for him to get paid to kayak by himself, as long as he met up with us every once in a while to give us directions and another bit of trivia.

Eventually we did manage to get to the end of the spit, where we pulled our kayaks up on shore and began exploring the area around the lighthouse. We ate lunch with our guide, who actually talked to us a little bit (we found out he’s an English teacher at the local high school normally, and that his summer job is kayak tours. We also found out he’s the only person with a permit to kayak out to the end of the spit). We then took a tour of the small lighthouse and its keeper house while our guide took a nap on a picnic table.

our "guide" taking a snooze

The lighthouse is now run by a volunteer organization, and the keepers were all vacationers who were staying on the spit for a week. Apparently in exchange for answering questions and doing a few odd jobs while they’re on the spit, the keepers get the run of the place for a week at a time. Upon hearing this, we quickly grabbed a brochure about the program for my parents, and then headed back to pick up our guide. Along the way we ran into a film crew from Good Morning America, who upon hearing we were kayakers, asked to film us as we paddled away from the spit. Libby of course immediately agreed, and was excited about her chance for fame and fortune on the small screen. Our guide was somewhat less excited, as to Libby’s disappointment he ignored the shouts of advice for a better scene from the crew as we pulled away, saying he was more concerned about our safety than the film crew at the moment. So, if you happen to see a couple of kayaks paddling away from a sandy spit on a foggy morning in the near future, that’s probably us.

On the way back we soon discovered that the wind had picked up considerably, and we were now paddling into the wind all the way back. In addition to making the paddling harder, this also had the effect of spraying me with water every time Libby lifted her paddle. She soon realized the benefit of this, and before long I was getting doused with sea spray. In the meantime, I discovered the benefit of smacking her on the back with my own paddle. Neither of these activities are particularly conducive to making headway, however, so we had to give up and resume paddling or risk losing sight of our guide entirely. The trip back followed the same pattern as our trip out – our guide would leave us, and then periodically we’d come upon him stopped in the water as he pointed out another waypoint for us to head to. By this point both of us were tired and a little sunburned, so fortunately I didn’t have to deal with any more of Libby’s smug remarks of “So, who’s the slow one now?” or “Does someone feel tired? Aww, someone looks tired”. We did see some more unforgettable sights on the way back, like the huge flocks of nesting cormorants on the sea shore and the playful harbor seals with their pups that followed close behind us to see what we were.

After another hour and a half of paddling we made it back to shore, where we dragged ourselves back out of the boat and I began trying to restore circulation to my legs. We quickly unloaded our gear and tossed it in the car, and then I went back to help our instructor load up his truck with the kayaks. As soon as they were strapped down, he gave a quick “good to have you on the tour”, hopped in his car, and was gone. Libby and I then went back to our lodge to hose off and relax before our evening dinner reservations at a nice seafood restaurant. We spent most of the afternoon napping and reading, before Libby made the fateful discovery that the lodge’s movie library contained a copy of Foul Play, a Chevy Chase movie that had been a favorite of she and Emily when they were younger. Since I had never seen it, the movie was immediately put in so I could enjoy the same experience they had. Two hours later, and only a little bit traumatized, we headed into town for our final dinner in the town of Sequim.

The dinner was actually very nice, with delicious fresh seafood and a view out the window of the town boat marina. After dinner, Libby and I munched on a Tiramisu we had gotten at the restaurant as we wandered along the dock looking at the various yachts and fishing boats, discussing which ones we liked and what we would name a boat of our own. Finally, we decided the day was done and headed back to our lodge for the night.

Disclaimer: Please do not judge Marsha or Ed Baltes for allowing us to watch Foul Play as children, I am sure they were not aware that we watched it and would not have allowed it.

Thank you,

Legal Counsel for Libby Kady

Worn out for the day,

Soaked Steven and I’m glad my life jacket was well padded Libby

We started off the day with a three course breakfast. We are learning that every food option is made as complex as possible. The cookies left in our room were not just chocolate chip but orange oatmeal chocolate chip and earlier we were offered vanilla cherry almond scones. Which is just fine with us; it is quite delicious but just seems like more effort than needed. We drove to the Olympic National Park to view hurricane ridge. We once again found an extremely helpful ranger that knew every bend in the trail and had many options to suggest. After having climbed Mt. Si, I was itching to do some climbing and eagerly noted a Mt. Angeles on the map. I asked the ranger why he did not suggest that we take that route. In my head I was thinking he probably does not realize that we are not the typical stop in the park for a stroll kind of tourists. My ego had become a tad too big over recent successes. But the ranger was there to politely explain to me that unless I brought my ice ax and crampons he would not suggest it. Steven made a note to bring those on our next trip out here. I decided to take my burst ego and hike the well traveled and slightly paved trail up to an over look ridge. On the trail head was a warning sign warning us that an aggressive mountain goat was in the area and should he approach we should throw rocks at him. It was also noted that should we need to urinate we should do so on a rock off of the path seeing as the goat is salt deprived and would eat the ground. I nominated Steven to throw the rocks if the goat approached. I mentioned that it would be a good chance for him to defend my honor against an aggressive male.

The trip up the mountain was full of fantastic views of Mount Olympus and the Olympic Mountains, along with beautiful high mountain meadows full of

flowers and the occasional residual snow bank. We ended up taking picture after picture, often of the same things, just because of the breathtaking vista.

After about an hour of low key climbing, we eventually reached the top, where we took yet more pictures of the ocean on one side and Mount Olympus on the other.

Steven pointing out Mount Olympus

With our pictures and sight seeing complete, we headed back down the trail and then back down the mountain. Fortunately we didn’t run into any goats on the way back down, although we did run into several too-friendly deer who were sitting on the path. We eventually reached the exit for the park, and went looking for food.

I decided that for dinner we should stop in a hole in wall where the locals eat kind of a place for authentic Sequim seafood. I found a place that looked charming but run down enough that it might be perfect, The DePuis Restaurant. Walking in the restaurant was like entering the Twilight Zone. The place was completely empty but decorated with old lamps and red and blue Christmas lights everywhere. We stood inside the doorway stunned until a quiet voice drifted from the back: “Dinner for two? Follow me.” Like a typical Twilight Zone character, without thinking we followed her into the next room. The room had several elderly couples engaged in quiet conversation already seated. Each table contained an antique lamp lit with a red bulb, Christmas lights and knick kacks adorned every spare crevice. There were no ceiling lights, so everything was dim, and I could swear I saw fake stuffed birds stuck in the fake trees. It made for a very… interesting atmosphere. We ended up ordering the Dungeness crab special because of our desire to do as the locals do. It actually was being pretty good – the crab was cold, which we’d been warned about, and served whole except for the guts (for some reason called “butter”). On the way out, I insisted on getting a shot of Steven in front of the restaurant sign so we would have a permanent record of the eclectic place, and then we called it a night.

Signing off, Crab stuffed Libby and Hurricane hiking Steven

Travel question of the day:

If you had a yacht what would name it?