Back in the USA

This might be called Phase II of our adventure. We crossed back into the Lower 48 into Washington. We decided to avoid Seattle and all of the traffic there and went to Whidbey Island in northwest Washington. It turned out to be a really nice area. It's actually a fairly long island and has lots of farming land. There is also that influence of the water so there is lots of boating.

We found Deception Pass State Park, and really liked being in a campground with trees and lots of space between sites. This is one of the bridges that takes you out on to the island.

We visited a lavender farm that is in full bloom. They cut and dry it and use the buds for many of their products, and have oils made of some of it for soaps and other products. The drying house and shop smelled really good!

Now the problem with being on an island is that you have to get off it to go west to the Olympic National Park. We went out to the ferry to find out about making a reservation to go on the ferry to Port Townsend. Pretty busy ferry! We had to wait until the following evening to get the 9:15 ferry. That would mean checking out of the park at noon, spending the day in Oak Harbor, and getting to the the RV Park in Port Angeles very late at night.

So we spent the day being Wal Mart residents. We parked the RV in the corner of the parking lot and planned our day from there. A little laundry, a little grocery shopping, a farm market, Internet in the library, and dinner.

We thought we would drive the Jeep separate from the RV to make it easier to get reservations, and drove both over to the ferry well ahead of time to be able to get in line easily. When we got there, they told us to get in line and they would try to load us on an earlier ferry. And they did! We were on our way at 7:30! This was a much bigger ferry than the last one we rode on, but we still followed the loader's directions very carefully. Things were very tight! That is a picture of the RV taken from the inside of the Jeep.

Jim and Sue