We just got back from our anniversary trip to Orcas Island. It was so much fun! When we arrived in Seattle we rented a car and started heading up to Anacortes where the ferry would take us to Orcas. The sights must have been too much for us because we got lost. We took a 20 minute detour though the town and finally managed to get back on the freeway. Then back on the road again, we had about 45 minutes to get to the ferry before it left. Can you guess what happened next??? Yep, we missed the ferry by ONE minute! Argh!! We had to call the hotel on Orcas and change our reservation. Luckily, it happens often so they were able to make the changes without charging us money.
Then we had to get a hotel and something to eat in Anacortes. One thing about the Puget Sound region is that everything opens late and closes early, very frustrating when you need dinner at 8:45pm. We went to this place to get some seafood and they were closed, of course.
So we ended up and this little seafood/bar place for a quick dinner. At least they had Thomas Kemper root beer which made Kirk happy.
Then it was off to bed so we could make the first ferry to Orcas. Ok so ferries are so awesome! I had the best time riding on them! I feel like a little kid or something. My first ferry ride was the best because it was during sunrise and the scenery looked gorgeous!!!
It was also real cold there. Its so weird coming from 90 degree weather to a place where the high is in the 50's if the sun is out. But it was fun despite the cold.
So, when we got on the island, we decided to go check into our hotel, which was very gorgeous by the way. There was a room upstairs that had a pipe organ and grand piano. I took this picture for my dad. :)
Well, I dont know if you are aware but 7am is a little early to check into your hotel for the night so we decided to get some breakfast. Soon after our decision though, we realized that everything was closed. They didnt even open for breakfast until 9am! So, we decided to go to Moran State Park and go hiking. Our plan was to go until about noon and come back and have lunch (brunch time for the local folk). We learned alot this trip. One of the main lessons was that things dont always go as planned. Like our short planned hike for instance. It turned into a 6 hour hike, 4 hours up and 2 down. If anyone is looking to get in shape for trek, they should do this hike!
We were both super sore (and still are a little) and we probably lost 5 pounds each. But the view at the top was fantastic and totally worth it.
You could see almost the whole Olympic Mountain range (if the clouds werent in the way)and some of Canada. The view of the islands was amazing!
It was so cool being up that high (appx. 2000 feet). It was so peaceful both at the top and during the hike. We hardly saw any other hikers and wildlife. Well, we did see a couple of slugs, one of which Kirk stepped on. I hope its still alive!
After the long hike, we went to lunch at a cute small cafe. Everything there is small I guess. There are no fast food chains or stores anywhere. Thats probably another reason why we lost a little weight! :) The bread at this place was excellent! And the fruit too. It was all made fresh. Well, thats the same for all places there. Back at our hotel we caught a small portion of a piano recital upstairs in the music room. He was really good. He plays in the formal dining restruant too. We had dinner at a place in the center of Eastsound. Kirk had the halibut and was mesmorised at how delicious it tasted. I'm surprised we didnt take a picture of it! :) He couldnt stop talking about it the whole rest of the trip. I had a bite and it was good. I'm not too much of a seafood person at all really. But thats another topic we wont go into. The next day, we decided to go San Juan island. Again, we got there too early and everything was closed. So we went to a lookout place on the edge of the island to see if we could spot any whales.
Kirk said he thought he saw something come out of the water. We told ourselves it was a baby Orca and that is that.
Nothing else showed itself from the lookout so we went to go find a boat tour. It left from Roche Harbor on the west side of the island.
There are alot of beautiful sites on San Juan Island.
Our guided tour was so much fun! There were about 13 other people on the boat with us. We went around a ton of small islands and even into Canadian waters.
Did you know that there are around 800 islands in the Puget Sound? Well there are. On this one island that these two guys bought, they brought a bunch of exotic animals over to start a wildlife park but when it went under, they just left all the animals there. Sounds like Jurassic Park to me. The owner of Oakley Sunglasses owns the island now.
You can see some of the animals on the island still. Also what is cool about it is that 1/2 of the island is baren and hardly has any plant life and the otherside is full of trees and greenery. No one knows why.
So on this whale watching exibition, we didnt see any whales. But we did see a bunch of Porpus of different varieties. The videos and pictures of them didnt turn out to well because they go in and out of the water fast. We saw a couple of seals floating by and a blue heron. We also saw about 4 bald eagles.
They are hard to see in the trees and on the rocks but they were cool in the binoculars! Also we saw a huge sea lion lounging on the shore. It was about 1000 pounds the captain said and it was only a baby!
So the sailing adventure came to an end and the whole rest of the night and even some the next day we felt like we were swaying still. I kind of feel like that now but that might be from staring at the computer screen too long!
We at dinner at the hotel restruant and had awesome steak and chimchurri's (I hope I spelt that right). If you need more info on the latter food, ask Kirk, its from Argentina.
On a random side note, has anyone ever seen a deer pee or poo? Well, now I have seen both! And let me tell you, it was the funniest thing ever! I laughed my head off! Kirk didnt think it was as funny as I did. The deer there are definatly not afraid of humans. I wish I got a picture of it! Anyways, we left the next day for home. Luckily we made the ferry back to Anacortes and made it to the airport on time. Oh, I forgot to tell you about our rental car. It sucked! It was so cheaply made. I broke one of the air vents just by adjusting the flow of air and Kirk broke the key (which was one of those ones that folds down into itself like a key to a Jetta) by dropping it on the grass from about 20 inches away. So cheap! Anyways, now we are back home and back at work. The only exciting thing about coming back was seeing Trixie.
She was super excited to see us. Thanks so much to the Letner's for watching her! The End!
