Friday Harbor
For a few years, we had wanted to visit one of the islands of San Juan County. A few of our friends have stayed on Orcas Island and Lopez Island, but we really wanted to check out San Juan Island, and specifically the charming city of Friday Harbor. But planning a trip there involves more time and organization than we normally are accustomed to, so whenever we had thought about booking a stay there, either every hotel was booked, or the ferry reservations were booked, so we would give up.
However, this year, we got lucky and found a room at a B&B for a midweek vacation, and also ferry reservations from Anacortes to Friday Harbor, so we pounced on this opportunity. So on Tuesday, we made our way to Friday Harbor and had a fun time during our two nights there.
We arrived in the early afternoon there, and too early to check in to our B&B, so we walked around the city for a bit just to soak in the PNW island town vibe. It was a nice sunny day, which made it so much more beautiful and relaxing:
After we grabbed lunch at a cute cafe called The Market Chef, we were able to check into the B&B to drop off our stuff, and then got into our car to drive to the southern part of the island.
Our first stop, the American Camp. So in the mid-1800s, there was a dispute between the US and the British regarding the boundaries of the islands in that part of the San Juans, so both countries set up camps on opposite sides of the island to facilitate a resolution to the boundary dispute. At some point during this, a pig belonging to someone from the British camp was grazing on an American farmer’s farm, so he shot the pig and killed it. This started the beginning of the Pig War. No one actually died during this war, but it did increase some tensions between the two camps on the island. Eventually after 12 years, the two countries came to an amicable resolution and the war ended. The two camps, or really whatever remains of the two camps, are still available to see on the island.
So when we arrived at the American Camp, we expected to see a few more buildings intact, but instead, we saw about three of what seemed to be at least 10+ structures that used to be there. Great views of the water, which made sense given that this was a military camp, so having views for a long distance made sense:
We walked around a bit, and then decided to walk down to the the nearby Grandma’s Cove. It’s a small beach, but wonderful to just walk around and enjoy the views and the water:
Next, we drove south to South Beach, a larger beach in the area. And then continued south to an overlook, and then to see Lighthouse Reservation:
We then headed north to Lime Kiln Park before returning to the B&B. This park is noted for being a great place to see whales in the water, and since it was whale season when we visited, we were hoping to be able to see them. It’s also the location of the whale research station, where there are microphones in the water to help signal the presence of any nearby whales. Once again, great views, but unfortunately for us, no whales…
We then headed back to find some dinner and then rest up for the next day, which would be a lot of biking.
The next morning, due to Covid restrictions, breakfast was served to our room instead of in the dining room. I actually like this ‘cuz then we don’t have to get dressed to go eat, and can just lounge around in our robe in our room. We then went to get the e-bikes that Nick reserved from Discovery Adventure Tours. After a few minutes of me having mild panic attacks due to the height of the seat being too high and unable to be lowered enough, we were able to get a new seat with a shorter pole, and that made me feel a lot better. I hadn’t biked in a few years, so starting off feeling like I was always going to fall over was not going to happen, so I was sooooo happy to get a shorter bike seat.
We then started biking out of the city to the Northwest, up Roche Harbor Road, which had some semblance of a shoulder to bike in. The other option was to use Beaverton Valley Road, but we were told that there was almost no shoulder to bike on. Considering that I’ve never really biked on the street, I wanted to have as much clearance from the cars as I could, so we took the longer route.
The first mile for me was harrowing, as I was still trying to get comfortable with the gears and the e-bike assist modes, but eventually we got to the main road and away from the cars, and then it was fine. We took a wrong turn somewhere, so we had to backtrack about a mile to eventually make our way to the British Camp. Unlike the American Camp, the British version had a few more buildings intact, as well as a cute little garden, and the flattened ground of various buildings in the hill:
I think we had read that since the British Camp was close to Vancouver Island, they were better supplied by their country, whereas the American Camp was unable to get many of their requests fulfilled by the government.
We then biked another mile or two south to what I was most excited about, The Farm at Krystal Acres. They have an alpaca farm, and you can go into the store and buy a bag of feed for $5. The alpacas were super friendly, and many of them recognize the sound of the bags, and will come up to the fence for you to feed them. They were extremely cute, and it’s not helping my desire to actually own a few alpacas.
It was time for lunch, and outside of Friday Harbor, the only other place to find food on the island is Roche Harbor. On the way though, my inexperience on the bike showed as I took a left turn at an intersection too wide, and fell into a ditch. I have no idea what I looked like as I fell, but it caused a driver in a construction truck to stop and ask if I was OK. Fortunately, I didn’t break anything, but I did have a large scrape on my elbow, and my right thigh was bruised. We didn’t have a first aid kit on us, so we had to keep biking to Roche Harbor in hopes of finding a place for me to clean the wound.
So we knew nothing about Roche Harbor, other than that there were a few places to eat, so we sort of expected a small town. Turns out, it’s this large, extremely well manicured resort:
And here I am walking in with a bike with a bloody elbow that’s clearly visible. While walking down the hill, I could feel that my right leg was more bruised than I had thought, but at least I was able to walk. I was able to find a bathroom to wash my elbow, and since we’re in a pandemic, I could easily find Purell to apply to the wound, which hurt…a lot…
We had lunch at Madrona Bar and Grill, which was a wonderful break from all the biking. Before returning our bikes, we made a stop at the San Juan Sculpture Park. We expected to see like 10 sculptures, but it turns out that this is a 20 acre park with many cool sculptures to see, and some that you can interact with. It was a pleasant surprise, and a great way to end our biking adventure.
Also, some really bad poems, like this one:
We returned the bikes and rested before dinner. So one thing that was difficult during our trip was finding dinner, especially mid-week. Due to the pandemic, some of the restaurants were closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and the other nice restaurants were already booked. So our advice is to make reservations early so that you don’t end up at a crappy place for dinner. We actually got lucky on Wednesday because Nick was able to get a reservation at Duck Soup. The food there was great, but it’s actually located between Friday Harbor and Roche Harbor, so you’ll need to drive there, but it’s definitely worth it.
The next day, we had some time to kill before our ferry back to Anacortes, so we drove to Pelindaba Lavender farm. We were a little late in the season, so the fields weren’t really purple, but since the lavender had dried on the plants, you could definitely smell them while walking around the fields:
It was also the season for harvesting them for essential oils, which we saw some people doing. Over at the gift shop, there was a man distilling the lavender into the oils, and the smell there was even stronger. We were thinking of buying some to make into soap, but we couldn’t really justify spending $50 for an ounce of oil just to put into one batch of soap, so instead, I bought some culinary lavender to make into lavender lemonade and other yummy items.
We went back to Friday harbor to get some hand-dyes yarn from Island Wools and some made to print t-shirts from Printshop Northwest.
In the end, we had a wonderful stay at Friday Harbor, and now we want to explore the other islands sometime soon!