Jason’s Travels

Well, before I went to bed last night I had pretty much decided to spare myself the cost of more ferry rides and to go to the Cascade Mountain Highway instead of the San Juans today. That all changed while I slept, I guess. When I woke up I decided I really wanted to see San Juan so I got the hell out of the shit hole that was the Mark II Motel and headed back to Anacortes. This time I had a ferry schedule and I arrived just in time for a quick breakfast and then the ferry ride. The earliest ferry straight to Friday Harbor was not till 2:45pm, so I took the 12:05pm one to Orcas instead. I’m glad I did!

Orcas turned out to be absolutely, stunningly beautiful. I had the most wonderful time. When I was buying my ferry ticket the ticket seller lady told me I should go to Mount Constitution cause on a day like today the view would be great; so that’s what I did. It was about a 30 minute drive to the top, but you can see from the pictures that it was all completely worth it. It’s only about 2800 feet high, but when you have a summit that looks out on islands and tons of natural beauty it doesn’t take a lot of height to do the job.

On the way back down the mountain I stopped at one of the trail heads for Cold Springs, which sounded good to me. I get a thrill from drinking from mountain streams, so that sounded like a good place to do it. Unfortunately, there was a sign at the trail head saying no potable water from here on, so I didn’t have any. It was very pretty though.

I headed back to town and got back on the ferry to go to Friday Harbor. The ride was very nice. It reminded me of something, but I can’t think of what. I feel like every time I ride one of these boats it’s taking me back to something I miss, but I don’t think I ever spent a lot of time on a boat anywhere in my life. My Dad was in the Coast Guard, and he really enjoyed it and felt a great attachment to the sea, so maybe I am channeling him. I know that the smell of salt water, and the shriek of sea gulls and seeing a lighthouse on a rocky point just pulls right at my soul and I love it.

Anyway, I didn’t have a plan for Friday Harbor, and by driving through the town I could see it was going to be pretty dead. It’s a Monday evening in the off season. Not a lot going on.

I took a drive out to Lime Kiln State Park which was supposed to be the best place for seeing whales from the coast (instead of on a boat) and I hiked out to the viewing area. I didn’t see any whales but I did see a sea lion right up close! He was maybe 20 or 30 feet away just chilling on a rock! So cool! I tried to get a picture, but when he heard me he just flopped right into the water. So beautiful.

It was starting to get darkish so I checked the little brochure that came with my ferry ride for places to stay. Under the “really cheap” section I found Juniper Lane Guesthouse which was described as “New, hip, gorgeous, wi-fi” which sounded like just the place for me. The prices were also supposed to be from $30-$165 which sounded great.

I kinda blew past the place at first cause I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. I thought about heading into town to see if there was something closer to the action (heh!) but after seeing it was only 1.3 miles away I headed back.

I peeked in the door of what seemed like the office but it was dark and no one was around. When I peeked back out a girl was walking up towards me. She introduced herself as Juniper, the owner of the guest house and told me all about it. The place is absolutely beautiful and every bit as cool as the description made it sound.

She has a nice web site with a ton of pictures, so just check that out. If you are every in Friday Harbor you *have* to stay here.

And that’s it for my San Juan Islands adventure. Today was great. I had a really nice time all day and I found a perfect room to sleep in, which is a welcome change from yesterday.

You can click the birdy at the top for today’s pictures.

Before you read about my crappy day today, you may want to go back to yesterday’s post and re-read it. I finished it up and it’s much more interesting than this one

Today didn’t turn out quite how I wanted it to. My morning started with a jolt when my alarm went off at 8am and I didn’t remember falling asleep. I guess I was so tired that I slept right through the night without a single wake up and when I got up at 8am it felt like I had just dozed off a moment before.

Anyway… I decided to drive down to Victoria to see what that was all about and then come back to Sidney later on to catch a ferry to San Juan. I set out to Victoria, which wasn’t very far away. I caught a quick breakfast and then wandered around downtown for a while. I decided I wasn’t much in the mood for a city but I did see on the map that the cruise ship port wasn’t far off, so I rolled over there to check it out. That turned out to be a lot of fun.

At Port Victoria, where the cruise ships come in, there is a giant water break that I guess keeps the waves away from the port. You could walk out on it so I did, and it was a really nice walk. On the way back I climbed down the side to walk on the big granite stones that made it up and enjoyed myself completely.

After that I headed back towards Sidney to try to get to San Juan and found out the only ferry for the day left at 11:30am. That’s what you get for not planning anything. I tried to come up with other options, but eventually ended up just completely backtracking the way I came. Unfortunately, so was everyone else and I ended up waiting in line for the ferry for around 3 hours. Then I had a 45 minute wait in line at US Customs to get back into the States and now I am settled into the nastiest motel I’ve ever been in at the junction of WA-20 and I-5. The walls are peeling, there is water on the floor of the bathroom, I can hear things in the walls and the highway traffic is deafening.

I couldn’t decide if tomorrow I will go to San Juan (I finally got a ferry schedule, and there are plenty of options) or if I will go east to the Northern Cascades Highway, so I got a room right in the middle of the two to decide tomorrow. I should have gone back to Anacortes and stayed where I stayed Friday night. Only 5 miles away and light years nicer. Oh well.

And that’s it for Sunday. Pretty much a big waste of a day, although the walk in Victoria and the ferry ride back were both very nice. Tomorrow should be a lot of fun, whichever way I decide to go.

Click the water break at the top to see today’s pictures.

I’m too tired to do a full post tonight, but I uploaded lots of pictures from today. In brief: I woke up in Anacortes, drove to Vancouver, walked across the most expensive toll bridge in the universe, saw some timber wolves, checked out downtown Vancouver and Chinatown and then took a long, awesome ferry to Sidney, BC so that I can cross to Friday Harbor, San Juan tomorrow. And now it’s time for sleep!

Click the big bridge to see today’s pictures.

And now, to finish that up! I woke up early(ish) in Anacortes and did some laundry, which was badly needed. I had had no time to get any done before I left for the trip and things were starting to get pretty bad. After all that excitement I headed to the port to try to catch a ferry to the San Juan Islands; destination Friday Harbor. On arrival it turned out the next ferry was not until 2:45pm and it was only around 11am. After a little though I decided I’d take the long way around, drive to Vancouver, check it out, then go to Victoria and eventually take the ferry to Friday Harbor from the west instead of the east.

Some of that actually happened.

I did make it to Vancouver, and it was gorgeous. On approach you see skyscrapers with a snow topped mountain backing. It’s really, really beautiful. When I crossed the border to Canada one of the first things I saw was a billboard for a walk across suspension bridge, and it looked really neat so I decided to check it out. I plugged in the address in my GPS (which has been the most awesome thing ever) and headed straight there. Along the way I saw a really tall mountain that I decided I wanted to see the top of before I left. File that for later.

The suspension bridge was ultra-touristy but still worth it. The bridge itself was really cool, and very bouncy and then the little town in the trees made me think that the designers of Kelethin in EverQuest and of the tree section of Far Cry had definitely been to this place. It was very neat. Shame I don’t know much Japanese, or I would have been able to communicate with every single person there. Very touristy.

So then it was off to find that mountain. I saw a sign that said “Grouse Mountain – The Peak of Vancouver” and that sounded pretty promising. I drove to the top and they had a cable car that would take you the rest of the way but it was $36 and I had just paid $26 to walk across a bridge, so I decided to skip it. I did get to see some real wolves for free though. They were behind a three wire electric fence, but I could have easily patted them on the snout if I were so inclined. I was not so inclined. Close up a wolf does not look anything like a dog. It looks like a killer.

Next up I had to decide what to do with the rest of my day. I had considered sleeping in Vancouver, but I didn’t really have any good reason to. Just in case a reason presented itself, I decided to check out a hostel downtown and see what happened. My GPS took me right to it and I recognized the front of the building from the picture I had seen earlier. Mostly recognized. There was some new art on the front door in the form of black spraypaint exclaiming “Die Punks Die”. I decided to hit the road.

So, the plan was to take a ferry to Sidney, B.C. (British Columbia), spend the night and then try to get to Friday Harbor in the morning. The ferry ride was awesome. It snaked through a bunch of little islands and once again, I started thinking the designer for the Siren Isles in EverQuest had once sailed the same way.

I slept in a great Super 8 with speedy Internet access which would come in to play several times throughout the next day… but that’s tomorrow’s (today’s) post!