What do you get when you put three adventurous gals together for an impromptu four day road trip filled with museums, ferries, islands and mountains? A very active, giggly and just plain awesome vacation! The main takeaway…. ALWAYS MANIFEST SPECIFICALLY!! Here’s photographic breakdown of the trip, enjoy!! Day 1: Drive to Seattle for the Terracotta Warrior exhibit at the Science museum. Unfortunately both Kari and I were misguided by GPS about how long the trip would take given the construction in the Seattle area. Kari ended up doing an “Amazing Race” style arrival at literally the deadline for our time stamped tickets! In the evening, while Kari visited a friend in the hospital, Kristen and I explored some new neighborhoods and feasted on some delish vegan food! Day 2: Had a leisurely morning before driving up to the Mukilteo Ferry to get us over to Fidalgo Island (our first island of the trip!) After the short ferry ride, we drove up to Deception Pass State Park. After the super hot and smoky weather in Portland, it was nice to have a lovely breeze and clean air. Of course, the fighter jets doing loops made a bit more noise pollution than we would have liked L After a nice little picnic on the beach, we hiked up and around the bridge and point. Such a beautiful area! Thinking our drive was much further to get to Anacortes, we ended up arriving at our airbnb a bit early. Luckily, Graham, our host, was available to let us in and give us some recommendations for dinner. We headed out to the marina for happy hour and beautiful views! As we were walking around town (its not big!) we discovered some really cool murals, and had a little fun with them. Day 3: This was our big “tour the San Juans” day and we didn’t want to miss our ferry to Orcas Island. We headed out to the ferry landing, but when we arrived and parked, it became quickly apparent we were at the WRONG ferry landing, yikes! With only 15 minutes to spare and GPS estimated 12 minutes to get to the right landing…we were doing our second “Amazing Race” sprint of the trip! At the correct ferry terminal, Kristen jumped out of the car to go buy tickets and discovered that the ferry was delayed by 20 minutes due to the heavy morning fog, whew!! Once on the ferry we made a new friend, who of course lives less than a mile from our houses…small world. We also discovered that they have jigsaw puzzles to work on to pass the time. It is clear that Kristen and I both could make puzzling a competitive sport! Our first stop was Orcas Island, the biggest of the San Juans. We had no clear plan and were hoping there would be shuttles or at least taxis at the landing. However, with only 5-ish buildings at the landing village, there were not a lot of options. Kristen got the name of a taxi driver from the gift shop owner and we crossed our fingers! When Kevin, and his trusty sidekick Ricky, showed up in a minivan we weren’t really sure what to expect…and decided to just go with the flow! Kevin gave us a lovely tour of the island and drove us up to Mount Constitution for an amazing photo-op and view. Then he drove us back to Eastsound Village and directed us to a fantastic lunch spot…once done we walked up to the Library and found our fearless guide to drive us back to the ferry. Next were off to San Juan Island, home of Friday Harbor. We bought our seats for a sunset tour and then found some cozy outdoor seats overlooking the harbor for another Happy Hour. The drinks were delicious, but the blankets they brought out when it started getting chilly were fantastic! There are no words to describe how amazing the sunset was…the only thing missing was a pod of Orcas playing in the water below us! Needless to say, we were exhausted on the ferry ride back to Anacortes and we all took little naps. Day 4: The day we checked out of the airbnb, we had no real plan and no place to lay our heads for the night. Being us, we decide to wing it and start heading south towards the Olympic National Park. Our first challenge, we discovered upon arriving at the ferry landing, was going to be getting on a ferry with no reservation…whoops! We took our place in line and waited an hour and half; the plus side was a beautiful setting for the ferry landing. As we’re sitting in the car while the ferry was being loaded, we were all using our energy to manifest our place on the ferry! They took all the cars in front of us, but put the cone up just as I pulled up….5 minutes passed and then they waved us on!! Literally the last car load, whew! We headed to Port Angeles for lunch, and did a little walking around before hand. After lunch was Hurricane Ridge, a first for both Kari and Kristen. As we were driving up the mountain, it was a bit cloudy and we were all making comments about wanting the sky to clear up. Coming around the last turn to the parking lot, the skies pretty much cleared out and it was blue sky so we could see the Olympics! Looking out over the landscape, Kristen mentioned how it would be cool to see some wildlife….and of course; we walked around the corner to find a doe and her fawn. Needless to say, we knew we had to buy lottery tickets with the luck we were having! There was mention of seeing a bear now…but the only bears observed the rest of the day were on a t-shirt in the grocery store and a big stuffed one at the Log Cabin Resort on Crescent Lake. It was getting later, and we still had no place to stay for the night. With the way our luck was going, we decide to try the two resorts at Crescent Lake, but no luck L As we were heading back to Sequim we did pass a herd of elk hanging out in the river. Both Kari and Kristen were working the phones to find an open hotel room, and finally the Econolodge had discounted room available. However, we had to come see the room before they would confirm it for us. We were a little nervous, but it was totally fine AND only $100! Unfortunately though, we discovered the only place open with food after 9:00pm in Sequim is Applebee’s. Day 5: Since we had hauled three paddleboards with us all week, we decided we had to actually use them! We found a cool lake off of HWY 101 created by a reservoir, called Lake Cushman. Trust the GPS to take us on a round about way down a gravel forest road. Ultimately we arrived and although it was a bit windy, we got the boards pumped up and had a lovely paddle followed by a very nice picnic. Then it was time to head home…. Overall it was a fantastic trip and great reminder that spontaneity is a wonderful thing :)
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