San Juan Island

By the time we got off the ferry and through U.S. customs on San Juan Island, it was 7:40 p.m. and getting dark fast. Looking lost, as we so often do when staring at the map, a man, speech slurred and stance slightly wavering in the breeze, offered to help us find a campground. Melissa and I weren’t, but probably should have been, taking into account that we were standing outside a bar.

“Go this way,” the man said, pointing at an island on the map that was not the one we were currently standing on.

“Here,” he said firmly, then pointed in a huge gesture down the road. “Just follow this road, towards that big cloud.”

And the crazy part is, we did. We followed his directions. Until . . . we ran into a dead end not but two blocks away from the bar. But we thought, hey this is an island! we can’t get too lost! So we continued out of town on a nearby road (towards the cloud), which went smoothly until it got way too dark way too soon.

We stopped at a house, hoping to get some more directions, but it proved useless. And then, like angels sent from above, Katie and Kyle rolled up on their bikes. “You guys okay?” they asked. And just like that, they offered to let us sleep on their property.

We followed them, and their headlights, six miles inland, up a huge hill and down a steep gravel road, in the pitch dark. We arrived on their property, which they share with Katie’s parents, and were immediately invited in for a late supper, which turned into an invitation to sleep in their guest room.

The dad, Dennis, is a retired Lutheran minister and the next morning he cooked us a great breakfast and packed us a sack lunch, complete with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (cut in half, of course) and freshly baked zucchini bread. After hugs and pictures, Melissa and I headed off to the San Juan County Park on the other side of the island.

The San Juan County Park, without a doubt, is the most beautiful place we have ever camped. The park sits on a bluff, overlooking Puget Sound, with views of the Olympic Mountains, Canada and the many, many orca whales who migrate in the waters below. It was so amazingly calming there and we sat on the bluff and stared at the water, orca whales and passing boats until the sun went down.

Brooke

Before we could find a map, Kyle drew us an almost perfect rendering of the island (to which Katie exclaimed, "It's a kidney!").