San Juan Islands

We went camping in the San Juan Islands for Labor Day weekend!  Somewhere I've always wanted to visit.  We camped at West Beach Resort on Orcas Island, which had been recommended to us by friends.  We loved it because we were able to go crabbing on the docks and they had a huge bonfire each night on the beach.

our first time on a car ferry!

The kids wanted to bring home crabs to boil and eat, so badly!!  But the rule was that you can only keep the boy crabs, over a certain size.  We caught lots of crabs!  It was fascinating to watch them all crawl into the cage, trying to get the salmon bait.  But when we pulled up the cage, most would wiggle out, which meant they weren't big enough.  We had two huge ones!!  But one was a girl, and the other about 1 inch too small so we had to throw them back.  And just in case you're wondering, females have a beehive design on their stomach.

lowering it down--salmon bait in the middle

 
darn it!  It's a girl...beehive on the stomach

I loved that on the US side of the border, they fly both flags, with USA on top, then on the Canadian side of the border, they also fly both flags, but with Canada on the top.

We also went on a whale watching trip and saw orca whales!  It was very exciting.  We went north, all the way up kind of by Vancouver.  Then, on the way back, one of the boat engines broke, leaving us with only one working engine and we had to go extra slow home.  The kids were hungry and tired!  It added an extra 1 1/2 hours.  It was a long day.

entertaining themselves on the boat

 

 

 

and then we missed the ferry because I made us stop and take this picture!  Enchanted Forest Road!!  Emily and I watched the first three seasons of Once Upon a Time this summer and fell in love with that show.  This sign was perfect.  But the car in front of us was the last one to make it onto the ferry.    whoops.   Took us seven hours to get home b/c of labor day traffic.