San Juan Island

It’s been nearly three years (and in my opinion way too long) since I’ve had an entire day and night without children. When my Mom told us she was coming up to visit, I decided we would plan an overnighter to the San Juan Islands. We had planned on taking the commuter train downtown to catch our ferry, but Justin changed our minds (he didn’t want to pick us up on Saturday night) so we decided to drive into Seattle instead. We woke up early Friday morning and gave ourselves two hours to travel what we normally take 45-60 minutes with traffic. We were about 20 minutes away from Seattle when the traffic came to a stop. We turned on the radio and learned about a tanker that had overturned on the freeway. We tried to remain positive that they would at least let the carpool lane get through. But they closed the entire freeway and we were diverted off some exit along with everyone else.

Come on, we could have totally squeezed by in the carpool lane.

After two hours on the road it became clear we weren’t going to make our ferry. (By the way it was “non-refundable”, but I’m hoping we can at least get a credit so if anyone is traveling on the Clipper to Victoria or San Juan, let me know…)

Anyone that knows me understands that I don’t like to be late, and I don’t handle being in a rush. I don’t like driving, especially in a city, in the rain, and in bumper to bumper traffic. So missing the one ferry out of Seattle was a major bummer. (I was cursing Justin at this point... not that he caused the accident, but someone tangible needed to be blamed and he did convince us to drive.)

We decided to take our chances and drive an additional hour and a half and try to catch the state ferry up north. We made good time and we both sighed a huge sense of relief when we pulled into the ferry lane with time to spare. We were going to make it to San Juan after all! However, we had one more time constraint. Our ferry was due to arrive on the island at 12:10pm and once we got there we needed to drive to the other side of the island for our 1pm whale watching tour. So we were excited when we pulled onto the ferry and parked in the front of our row. However, when it came time to deboard our row was one of the last. We sat in the car only a few feet from the exit waiting for our turn, it seemed like an eternity. When it looked like we weren’t going to make it to the dock in time we tried to call our guide to ask him to wait, but there was no answer. Seriously, could it be any more difficult to get anywhere? I drove quickly and we did make it (late, but they didn’t leave without us) and all the stress was worth it.

I know the pictures aren’t great. It’s nearly impossible to take pictures while on a small boat, but I have to share.

We were lucky enough to see three different pods of orca whales.

There was a pair of porpoise (dolphins) that played by our boat for about 10 minutes. They were adorable and kept jumping in and out of the water. So hard to catch on film, but soooo amazing.

We also saw a huge school of salmon jumping and a bald eagle.

This is Captain Jim. He keeps his eye on the orcas while steering the boat with his foot. Classic tour guide humor, but he really knew his stuff.

On land we saw deer eating along the hillside and a fearless little fox followed my Mom and me near a hiking trail.

We ate great food, attended Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest” at an outdoor theatre, walked around the little shops in the harbor, and visited a lavender farm.

Aside from the first several hours of our trip, it was a great get away and I am so glad I could spend it with my Mom.