This first map is a google map of the state of Washington. I circled Whidbey Island on it. As you can see, I live in the center of the Puget Sound (you may have to click the picture to see it a little larger):
The second map is of the Puget Sound, with a star on Oak Harbor - the town I live in - on Whidbey Island, and an arrow pointing to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island:
Oh and that gray line to the left of the map? That's the United States/Canada border, something that also fascinates me. You can see Vancouver Island from Whidbey Island and the fact that I live closer to the Canadian border than I do to Seattle is something that I've loved since we moved here. I've come to love the city of Vancouver so its something that I will miss when we move away from here. (note: Vancouver Island is home of Victoria, the capital of British Columbia. The city of Vancouver is a city, not an island, that's on the mainland of Canada. I've noticed that this seems to confuse people for some reason. Basically, the island and the city are 2 very different things.)I'm fascinated by the San Juan Islands because you can only get to them by boat or plane (a small plane), yet people still live there. I'm not sure why its so fascinating to me, but I can't imagine living in a place that I couldn't get on or off of without a boat or a plane. Granted, you can drive your car onto the ferry to get there, but there is no bridge or tunnel to get you there, so if the ferries are out of service (which seems to happen more often than one would think) you're basically stranded. All of the San Juan Islands are like this, but the larger ones have a large ferry going in and out of them, while the smaller ones have nothing except personal small watercraft. I just can't wrap my mind around the idea of living somewhere like that. But with that being said, I love visiting this area. Last summer I went to San Juan Island for the first time when my friend came out to visit me. Mr. V was deployed at the time and its a place he had been wanting to go to, so this past weekend we finally had the chance to go together.
(View from the ferry of the San Juan Islands)
(a house on one of the smaller San Juan Islands - I can't even imagine living like this!)
(a boat and a plane - the only methods of transportation out here)
(arriving in Friday Harbor)Our first stop was at the San Juan National Park American Camp. Back in the mid 1800's the island was jointly occupied by American and British troops who got into a little scuffle over a pig that someone shot. Basically both sides claimed that they owned the island, one guy shot a pig that belonged to a guy on the other side, they built forts/camps to protect each side, then lived there peacefully on opposite ends of the island for several years until the German Kaiser settled the dispute and awarded the island to the Americans. Thats a really crappy version of the history there, but if you feel the need, google "Pig War" for the more educated version of the story :-).
(American Camp on the southern end of the island)
(Officer's Quarters - one of 2 surviving buildings left)
(Laundress Quarters)
Our next stop was the town of Roche Harbor at the northern end of the island. I've been trying to find out how many people live in Roche Harbor, but its apparently so small that I can only find the entire population of San Juan Island itself (2,152), and no information on Roche Harbor on its own. So basically, its REALLY small. And I'm not going to lie - I sort of got a Twilight Zone feeling upon entering this town. It starts with a large sign over the road welcoming you to Roche Harbor Resort, which I sadly didn't take a picture of. I just found it odd, because it functions like the whole town is a resort, even though it has actual permanent residents.Then once you get into the town its just...weird. I don't know how to explain it. Its just so small, that you feel like you're walking into someone's backyard, except its a town. If you've ever read the Weird Washington book, its also in there. As in, the entire town is listed as one of Washington's weird places. It was an old company town, built around a lime kiln, that is still standing in ruins today (the lime kiln is in ruins, not the town). Also, one of the town's original residents built this enormous, way overdone, mausoleum for his whole family.
So let's recap. The town itself is in the Weird Washington book. The McMillan Mausoleum is also in the book. This is a town that apparently doesn't even have enough residents to even bother coming up with a town population count, yet it appears in the book twice. I'd say that makes it pretty weird.
Aside from the weirdness though, it was a pretty cute town that we explored for a while. When I went to San Juan Island last summer, we didn't make it up to Roche Harbor, so it was something pretty interesting to see this time around.
(part of the old lime kiln)
(another part of the old lime kiln)
(Hotel de Haro - an original wooden hotel. We went inside to look around and its so old that guests have to share a hallway bathroom with only one toilet and one shower. The floors and stairs are crooked and it just has an overall spooky atmosphere.)
(I think the size of the post office speaks for itself. I didn't notice if any of the houses in town had mailboxes so my guess is that if you count the number of mailboxes you can probably count the number of families that live in the town [and I didn't cut out any of the mailboxes in this picture - thats all of them].)
("downtown" Roche Harbor)
(after getting hooked on geocaching a few weeks ago, we've been playing around with some phone apps for it and we found that Roche Harbor has some. So we went looking for them and this is the first one we found.)
(2nd cache of the day)
(the McMillan Mausoleum - crazy and elaborate for such a tiny little town)
(me at the table in the mausoleum - each chair has the remains of his family members. Slightly creepy.)
(before we left Roche Harbor, we found a 3rd cache. Geocaching is definitely an addictive hobby!)
(English Camp- San Juan National Park)
(We got there as they were getting ready to close the visitor's center and one of the park rangers started recruiting everyone around to help out with the flag lowering ceremony.)
(folding the British flag)
(Mr. V helping to fold the flag)
(the park ranger getting ready to put the flag away for the night)
(view of the English camp from the hill where the Officer's quarters used to be)
(Mr. V in the old carriage lane leading to the Officer housing. The trees lining it were planted by the English who lived there in the 1800s.)
(American Camp on the southern end of the island)
(Officer's Quarters - one of 2 surviving buildings left)
(Laundress Quarters)Our next stop was the town of Roche Harbor at the northern end of the island. I've been trying to find out how many people live in Roche Harbor, but its apparently so small that I can only find the entire population of San Juan Island itself (2,152), and no information on Roche Harbor on its own. So basically, its REALLY small. And I'm not going to lie - I sort of got a Twilight Zone feeling upon entering this town. It starts with a large sign over the road welcoming you to Roche Harbor Resort, which I sadly didn't take a picture of. I just found it odd, because it functions like the whole town is a resort, even though it has actual permanent residents.Then once you get into the town its just...weird. I don't know how to explain it. Its just so small, that you feel like you're walking into someone's backyard, except its a town. If you've ever read the Weird Washington book, its also in there. As in, the entire town is listed as one of Washington's weird places. It was an old company town, built around a lime kiln, that is still standing in ruins today (the lime kiln is in ruins, not the town). Also, one of the town's original residents built this enormous, way overdone, mausoleum for his whole family.
So let's recap. The town itself is in the Weird Washington book. The McMillan Mausoleum is also in the book. This is a town that apparently doesn't even have enough residents to even bother coming up with a town population count, yet it appears in the book twice. I'd say that makes it pretty weird.
Aside from the weirdness though, it was a pretty cute town that we explored for a while. When I went to San Juan Island last summer, we didn't make it up to Roche Harbor, so it was something pretty interesting to see this time around.
(part of the old lime kiln)
(another part of the old lime kiln)
(Hotel de Haro - an original wooden hotel. We went inside to look around and its so old that guests have to share a hallway bathroom with only one toilet and one shower. The floors and stairs are crooked and it just has an overall spooky atmosphere.)
(I think the size of the post office speaks for itself. I didn't notice if any of the houses in town had mailboxes so my guess is that if you count the number of mailboxes you can probably count the number of families that live in the town [and I didn't cut out any of the mailboxes in this picture - thats all of them].)
("downtown" Roche Harbor)
(after getting hooked on geocaching a few weeks ago, we've been playing around with some phone apps for it and we found that Roche Harbor has some. So we went looking for them and this is the first one we found.)
(2nd cache of the day)
(the McMillan Mausoleum - crazy and elaborate for such a tiny little town)
(me at the table in the mausoleum - each chair has the remains of his family members. Slightly creepy.)
(before we left Roche Harbor, we found a 3rd cache. Geocaching is definitely an addictive hobby!)Our third stop was the English camp at San Juan National Park. The English camp is on the northern end of the island and was better maintained than the American camp, so a large part of it is still standing today.
(English Camp- San Juan National Park)
(We got there as they were getting ready to close the visitor's center and one of the park rangers started recruiting everyone around to help out with the flag lowering ceremony.)
(folding the British flag)
(Mr. V helping to fold the flag)
(the park ranger getting ready to put the flag away for the night)
(view of the English camp from the hill where the Officer's quarters used to be)
(Mr. V in the old carriage lane leading to the Officer housing. The trees lining it were planted by the English who lived there in the 1800s.)Our next stop was at an alpaca farm just to take some pictures - I want one :-).
Our final stop of the day was at Lime Kiln State Park. This is apparently a great place to go whale watching, though I can't say that I agree. Last year we arrived at the park exactly 4 minutes after a huge pod of whales had swam by - talk about bad timing. This year we were told that no whales had been spotted for 3 days. Maybe one day we'll get to see them!
(Lime Kiln State Park and lighthouse)
(view from Lime Kiln State Park)
(Mr. V and me)
(me - its so beautiful at this park!)
(back in Friday Harbor - one of the ferries arriving at the dock)
Our final stop of the day was at Lime Kiln State Park. This is apparently a great place to go whale watching, though I can't say that I agree. Last year we arrived at the park exactly 4 minutes after a huge pod of whales had swam by - talk about bad timing. This year we were told that no whales had been spotted for 3 days. Maybe one day we'll get to see them!
(Lime Kiln State Park and lighthouse)
(view from Lime Kiln State Park)
(Mr. V and me)
(me - its so beautiful at this park!)
(back in Friday Harbor - one of the ferries arriving at the dock)All in all a great day!
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