Orcas Island

Last Saturday we took a day trip out to San Juan Islands, specifically Orcas Island. We've been looking at the Islands for a while, hoping to camp there, but it's quite popular. So we decided to bite the bullet and go out for one full day. The ferry out to the Islands is reservable and all the reasonable hours were fully booked, so we got up at 5am to get to the ferry in Anacortes for 7am.

In the ferry we ended up parking beside a very large truck, so unfortunately Mom was trapped in the back seat. Dad and I went up to the upper decks where we got some good views of the islands, and we saw two dolphins and an otter! But it was pretty windy and chilly so we headed back down and enjoyed the rest of the ride with Mom and Luna in the car and a great view of the water.

After a much longer than planned pit stop at a coffee shop (pretty sure absolutely everyone on the ferry went to the same place) we drove into Moran State Park. We were planning on doing the Little Summit Trail, but we quickly learned that almost all the sights in the park are within 0.5 miles of the road, and if you want to do a considerable hike to them, you drive to a different parking lot and hike from there. We parked near the Little Summit, found a geocache and then did some hiking there. It was much quieter as it's further from the main peak in the park, so Luna enjoyed the walk. We then drove up to the top of Mount Constitution, which has a fire tower and found another cache. It was quite busy there, so we went back down to Little Summit for lunch. We had a great picnic, which a large circling bird may have wanted to share. I say a large circling bird, because we haven't fully agreed as to what it was. Mom and I thought it may have been a young eagle, (as it was brown with a yellow beak) but Dad is convinced it was a vulture of some kind.

After lunch we went down to Obstruction Pass State Park, which has the largest public salt water beach on Orcas Island. The water was pretty cold, but Luna enjoyed the swim. Dad almost enjoyed some reading time, but unfortunately a wasp really liked Dad's feet. So we didn't stay for too long. Afterwards we headed back to Eastsound (the teeny village where we got coffee) and had dinner at a Mexican restaurant. It was pretty good. For dessert we walked down to a chocolate shop and bought a truffle each. We spent the rest of the evening driving around the Island, as most of the little shops on the Island close before 5pm. (Which we didn't realize until 6pm, oops!) Then we headed back for the ferry which was leaving at 8:45pm. On the ride back we were all able to get out and watch the islands as we sailed by. We got home after 11pm.

It was a pretty busy day! Luna was absolutely exhausted and spent almost all of Sunday lying down.