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?