San Juan Island, Washington

Lakedale Resort
August 22-25, 2011

From Deception Pass, we drove to Anacortes and took the one-hour ferry to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island -- the largest of the islands in the San Juans. The weather was perfect -- in the mid-80s, which is very unusual for that far north.

We stayed at the Lakedale Resort, which has a very fancy lodge and nice safari-type furnished tents. It had actually been featured in Sunset magazine earlier in the summer. But we stayed in the basic camping area, where we had to haul water and use a poorly maintained outhouse. The site was huge, though, and quite private. We were very happy with it. We could walk to another area where there were showers, but it was so much more crowded over there. We liked our spot best.

There were three nice-sized lakes right at the campground, so we were happy as can be boating and, for Aly, fishing.

We spent one day touring the island, including Roche Harbor, which had grown unbelievably since we'd been there 14 years before.

Another day, we took a ferry as walk-on passengers to Victoria, BC and spent the day exploring the city. Aly was very excited to set foot in a different country, and it was a beautiful day to see the sites.

Click this button to see photos of Victoria: