Camping on San Juan Island

"You have to stop and pick up some cherries for us. They're only a buck a bucket, and the buckets are huuuuuuge. It's on the corner of Commercial and 22nd. We were following someone so we couldn't stop and pick some up ourselves."

So went the edict from one of the traveling caravan's passengers that I received on Meg's cell phone as we approached Anacortes. We had just embarked on a four-day, three-night car-camping adventure to San Juan Island, and we were minutes away from arriving at the ferry terminal. I honestly didn't want to stop for something so trivial (but which was professed to be of such profound importance), but we did anyway. The owner of the fruit stand, however, employed deceitful tactics to lure in wary out-of-towners: the purported "huge" buckets, which went for $7, easily dwarfed the advertised $1 buckets, which held about 10 cherries. (Meg gave the woman the finger on our return to Portland--suck my pit, fruit demoness). Even though we spent a seemingly trivial four minutes sidelined, Meg feared our spot on the 11:55 a.m. ferry was being taken by one of the many cars that passed us. She was right.

We ended up on stand-by and missed the boat by six cars. Our reward: more than three hours of waiting in a giant parking lot with thousands of other people (well, maybe hundreds). The weather was sunny, and we brought Ian's bike--which I swear is the answer for world peace, as everyone's worries and frustrations melt away after seeing the toddler power himself by. And Aaron, who had departed a day earlier with his Booren grandparents and spent Friday night on a submarine base, was still behind us (and ended being like one of the last 10 cars on the 2:00 ferry), so it was nice to trade him for his 17-year old cousin, Parker--the visiting  Sherwood celebrity socialite, whom we had early traded Aaron for. While we waited in limbo as the stand-by cars loaded one at at time, one of the neighboring drivers (who was also from Portland) suggested we hold a wrestling match for the right to go next. Ian and Ed took him up on the challenge: Eddie slapped the guy's butt a few times and Ian rod over his feet with his bike (don't worry: it was all in jest).

The actual ride through the Strait of Juan de Fuca was quick, windy, and picturesque. I paired up with Edward and thus visited every square inch that was accessible to passengers, even though the ride was only about 75 minutes long.

Upon seeing the terminal at Friday Harbor, my mind for some reason recalled a scene from a pirate-themed movie--maybe Hook or Pirates of the Caribbean? Regardless, within 10 minutes of easy driving we were at our campsite. It was on a dead-end corner, which was nice, but it also backed right up to a lake. Ironically, I was most worried about Ian falling in, but he was the lone child of ours who did not. We brought two tents to share among our family: a 3-man tent for Meg and I, and a 100-man tent for the kids (and a different stray each night). Ian, however, wanted nothing to do with that. Even though he was up late every night and never got a decent nap, he slept seemingly like a newborn (but his screaming was much louder). The last night I spent in the boys' tent, but I swear I didn't sleep more than an hour at a time because of Ian.

We attended church early Sunday morning (they meet at different times, according to the schedule of the ferry) with the locals and all the other tourists on the island (we saw many BYU fanboys at our campground). It was funny that more people were there than our regular ward in Portland.

We spent Sunday afternoon along the coastline at a state park where orcas often frequent. We didn't see any though. We would return on Monday afternoon and, much to the delight of the throng, we saw a few pods that came pretty close to shore and put on a bit of a show. If my kids enjoyed it, then it was worth it (because I thought it a bit underwhelming).

Monday morning brought America's birthday and a parade in Friday Harbor. It has been many years (decades? Japan maybe?) since I've been to a parade, but I actually liked it (it helped that there were a few vintage cars in the mix). Afterwards we parted ways with the Booren bunch and visited the Pig War picnic for take-out lunch and headed to English Camp (a fitting pro-America activity for July 4), which is apparently where British forces staged themselves after some pig was killed. The amazing thing was that it only took like 13 years to resolve their differences and leave the island for good. I love eating pigs probably more than anyone (especially since we don't eat it much in our house anymore), but that seems like a ridiculous reason to almost go to war. I was surprised to find the Booren's had also gathered at English Camp. While here some of us hiked to the 650-foot Young Mountain (one of us hiked to the top with a six-year old boy on his shoulders). The trail to the top was short but very steep, especially while carrying a 50-pound monkey on your back. But the view and easy descent were easily worth the effort.

After seeing the orcas at Lime Kiln part duex, we opted to return to our campsite for curry rice and a relatively early retirement to our tents, as I was up at 6:30 the next morning tearing down our camp in time for an 8:00 departure and another three-hour wait for the ferry. At least this time we could stroll through the shops in Friday Harbour, even though most were still closed at that early hour. We ended up driving Meg's sister-in-law Bre to PDX so she could catch a flight to SLC. Ian cried almost the whole time he wasn't napping. He will happily sit in a trailer for seeming forever on our bike rides and runs, so I don't know why he hates cars so much.

Meg and I discussed maybe returning some day, but ditching the car and the kids. We'd ride the ferry as foot passengers and then hitchhike around the island if we were motivated to see anything beyond Friday Harbor.