PNW Trip: San Juan Islands

When we were planning the trip to Washington I googled where the best orca viewing tours were which led me to the San Juan Islands.  I found a tour company, googled how far it was from Olympia and bought the tickets. We were figuring out the drive time one night after dinner when I realized that the ferry only ran a few times a day.  Rookie mistake ;) hahaha. We decided to just go for it anyway which meant that we were up and out of the house by about 5:45 on Saturday morning.  

We drove about 2.5 hours to the Anacortes ferry terminal, parked the car, bought our tickets and hopped on our first ever ferry. 

WE LOVED IT!!! Like the whole time we were all in awe that people get to do this daily.  The trip was SO GORGEOUS and, like true Texans, it was blowing our minds that people drove their cars on. hahaha

We arrived in Friday Harbor around 10 am which gave us a few hours to explore.  The town was DARLING and we really enjoyed popping into shops, checking out the worlds cutest farmer's market and grabbing lunch and ice cream to eat by the water.

We met so many sweet dogs which was an absolute highlight.

We grabbed sandwiches and mac and cheese at Spring Street Deli after walking around town and I'm not sure I've ever had a better deli sandwich ;)

We were all full but still had room for ice cream so we had that right by the water as well.

We made our way down to the dock...

... and boarded the tour boat.  We set off for about 3.5 hours on a mission to see some whales ;)

It was WAY WAY WAY colder than we anticipated.  Like REAL cold.  My kids all had hoodies but, could have used an actual coat.  Mason and I weren't going to miss anything so we braved the cold and wind for pretty much the entire time.

Luke, Dave and Griffin pretty much hung out inside and enjoyed being warm ;) Luke felt pretty gross for about 90% of the trip so this was the best place for him.  

We were able to see humpback whales...

... an eagle...

... lots of birds...

... a sea lion...

... a minke whale...

... and lots of harbor seals.

We didn't end up seeing any orcas but did get a raincheck to come back on a different day to hopefully see a pod.  Since we were only on the island for one day that didn't work our for us BUT we still really enjoyed the tour and would do it again in a heartbeat.

The tour ended around 4:30 and we had a bit of time to kill before the ferry back to Anacortes and pretty much everything closed at 5:00 so we checked a few more spots out...

... and found a little spot to hang out and play some cards while we waited.

We took the ferry back to Anacortes and then had about a 3.5 hour drive to our next house with a chick-fil-a pit stop along the way.

We didn't get up getting to the house until after midnight which made for a LONG day and if I was planning the trip again I'd start in Seattle, then book a house on San Juan island for at least two nights with the whale tour on the first day so in case we didn't see orcas we could go again the second day and then after that head to the Hood Canal (where we headed next) and then go to Olympia and then back up to Seattle to fly home.  Live and learn!!!  Overall we loved this day and have no regrets about how it ended up which just goes to show that it doesn't always have to be perfect to be perfect ;)