All about our trip to Orcas Island
More than 20 years ago, when Bart and I were engaged, his family took a trip to Orcas Island, off the coast of Washington.
We were invited on this trip but because Bart was in school taking a heavy load and I was working full-time, we couldn’t swing going.
For the past two decades, everyone in the family has gushed about how it is the best trip they ever did.
So last year, Bart’s younger brother floated the idea of a return trip and nearly everyone was instantly on board to go.
He found a place to house all of us and then Bart’s parents generously offered to cover the lodging costs.
Everyone was in charge of getting themselves there (some of us flew and some drove) and we all came for a great 7 day trip!
Here’s what our Orcas Island itinerary looked like:
Day 1 (Travel Day)
Our flight out of Salt Lake was just after lunch, so we spent the morning packing and getting ready to leave and then drove to the airport to catch our flight to Seattle (happily, our flights were covered entirely by credit card points! This is the course I used to learn how to do credit card points).
Almost everyone who was flying was on the same flight, which was fun, and it was a quick flight up to Seattle. We picked up our rental cars and then drove the 2+ hours up to Anacortes to catch the ferry over to Orcas Island (we had gotten reservations a few weeks earlier which was good because it was BUSY for the 4th of July holiday weekend).
We had quite a bit of extra time, so we stopped at a little roadside farm stand and got an enormous ice cream cone (seriously, the single scoop was the equivalent of 5-6 standard scoops). They called it an “immodest” scoop and they weren’t kidding. We also picked up a big flat of berries to eat in the car and they were insanely delicious.
Once we arrived in Anacortes, we stopped at Rachel’s Alibi for a quick dinner and then drove to the ferry terminal and checked in before our reservations expired. Once we were on the boat, everyone in our party (including some cousins who had flown in from Boston and Texas) gathered on the top deck and we enjoyed the beautiful one hour ride over to Orcas.
By the time we arrived, it was getting dark and we drove about 35 minutes to Doe Bay where Bart’s parents were waiting for us and helped us get checked in to the large house we were staying in (the two biggest families plus a few extra cousins stayed in the big house and then other couples and smaller families stayed in other smaller houses on the same resort property).
We got oriented and then all quickly collapsed into bed after a 12 hour travel day!
Day 2 (Thursday)
We woke up to a very cloudy day. Bart’s sister and brother-in-law took some of the cousins (including my two younger girls) on a nature walk/hike while the rest of us stayed behind for a leisurely morning and getting ready.
We took a walk down to the beach which was beautiful and stayed until it started to rain.
Most of the adults loaded up in the cars and headed into Eastsound to stock up on groceries for the week.
Bart’s parents provided dinner each night, but we were responsible for our own breakfasts and lunches, so we got cereal, oatmeal, yogurt, eggs and pancake mix along with bagged salads and sandwich supplies for lunch (and we picked up some snacks too).
When we got back, we had a late lunch and the rest of the rainy afternoon was spent doing puzzles, reading and playing games.
Just before dinner, some of us drove over to the art gallery which was so cute and fun (and rainy!).
After dinner, we headed back to the beach and explored for a bit before coming back to spend the rest of the evening hanging out together.
Some of the group had booked a bioluminescence tour and they headed out around 9:30 for that while the rest of us went to bed before they got back at around 1 a.m.
Day 3 (Friday)
After yesterday’s very rainy day, today was clear and beautiful.
After breakfast, a group of us headed out to hike around Cascade Lake (I was the only one of my family that went – everyone else wanted to stay back at the house and hang out). It was a beautiful walk and we had a great time. When we got back to the cars, many of us grabbed a scoop or two of local ice cream from The Sugar Shack.
When we got back to the house, everyone fixed themselves lunch and we hung out for a bit (I worked on a puzzle and the kids played Sounds Fishy).
After a while, some of the group wanted to go to a local pottery place (Orcas Island has a LOT of pottery – this place was especially cool because it’s almost all outdoors. It had been a hit on the previous trip 20 years early).
We drove over and spent an hour or so checking out all the pottery, admiring the incredible views and climbing up into the multi-story treehouse on the property. After everyone had made their purchases (we mostly had things shipped back to our homes for ease), we headed back to the house and had dinner.
After dinner, those of us who hadn’t done the bioluminescence tour the night before went out for our sunset kayak tour (kids under 13 couldn’t do the bioluminescence one, so this group was a lot of the parents and younger kids including our three younger girls).
Some of our dear friends had told us to keep an eye out for their daughter’s college roommate who was spending the summer working as a guide on Orcas Island with her fiancé and sure enough, as we unloaded from the cars, we discovered almost immediately that the two of them were working here. We took some photos and texted them back to our friends at home who were delighted we’d connected.
The kayak tour was about two hours long and really fun and beautiful. We saw seal harbors, river otters, multiple bald eagles and some jellyfish (including one that was safe to hold!). The guides also showed us their favorite seaweed to eat and Tally was especially taken with this, eating big handfuls of it (she said it tasted like edamame!).
When we got back to the dock, we got a brownie ice cream sundae to share and when the sun went down, they passed out free popcorn. It was just stunning out on the dock watching the sun go down – it felt like we were in a movie!
This was July 3rd and we’d found out that they were doing fireworks in Eastsound over the water, so we drove into town, parked (way more easily than I expected!) and made our way down to the water. The rest of our group – aside from one older cousin who had stayed back with a baby – met us there and we snuggled up to watch the fireworks. It was CHILLY and we were all sharing a few towels and blankets and jackets.
The fireworks were beautiful and when they were done, we headed back to Doe Bay and collapsed into bed!
Day 4 (Saturday – July 4th!)
Everyone was up bright and early (our room had a big glass door and two windows with no curtains of any kind and the sun comes up before 5 a.m. so sleeping in wasn’t easy!).
We got dressed and headed into Eastsound for the Fourth of July celebrations.
First stop was the Farmers Market which was small but darling and then we headed down Beach Street, hitting The Candy Shop, Brown Bear Bakery, and a few other cute stores.
Some of our group went to New Leaf Cafe for brunch but after our pastries, none of the kids were hungry, so we went into the local bookstore instead.
They had a Where’s Waldo? activity going where you got a booklet that showed all the participating stores in the area and in each one you had to find a small hidden Waldo and then get your booklet stamped.
My girls were ALL in on this and we ended up hitting more than 15 stores, walking up and down the streets to find the participating stores.
The parade was now underway and we walked up on the bike shop patio where we had a great view.
After 20 minutes or so, my kids were done with the parade, but there were too many cars parked behind our car to get out, so we walked to a few more stores to find Waldo and then came back to our car.
As we got in, my sister-in-law and her boys walked by and we chatted for a minute. We were right up against the parade route and we joked that it’d be funny to just drop in at the back of the parade and wave our little flags someone had given us out the windows as if we were part of the parade.
Well, the girls LOVED this idea and I thought “why the heck not?” So we got pulled into the back of the parade and the girls rolled down their windows, waved their flags, and everyone was cheering for them as we drove a block or two.
A very nice parade worker walked up to the car and said “Are you part of the car show?” When I told her no, she said “you can exit right here!” which was perfect because it likely would have taken us another 20-30 minutes to get to the end of the street behind the parade. This way, the girls had 5 minutes of delight and we were able to then head back to the house instead of waiting for ages.
We had lunch back at the house and then we spent most of the afternoon hanging out, playing games, and working on puzzles.
There was another fireworks show that night and most of us were pretty done with going out, but my two little girls wanted to go so they went along with Bart’s sister and her husband and a few other cousins.
It was a quick show and they were pack faster than I expected and then we all went to bed.
Day 5 (Sunday)
We were short a few tickets for the return ferry and they open up a selection at 7 a.m two days in advance, so several of us were on and ready to grab those when they opened. They were gone in less than 5 minutes but we managed to score the three that we needed which let us all breathe a sigh of relief!
We’d found a little LDS church branch to attend on the island so in the morning most of us got up and ready and headed into Eastsound for a lovely little Sunday meeting.
Afterward, we drove back to the house and had lunch and then a group of us headed out to go to the top of Mount Constitution. You can hike or drive to the top and we opted for driving. We parked and did the short walk to the top of the hill and then climbed the tower where you have a 360 degree view of the island and lots of other San Juan islands plus – on a clear day like this one – you can see to Canada!
On the drive back down, we pulled into Mountain Lake and got out to scope it out.
It was absolutely stunning and we wished we had swimsuits (we could have jumped in clothed but it was COLD and the prospect of driving back in cold wet clothes was not very appealing to any of us), but we vowed to come back the next day better prepared!
Doe Bay had a sauna/spa area but it was clothing optional during public times, which wasn’t exactly the family reunion experience we were looking for.
Fortunately, someone had canceled a private reservation and Bart’s sister and her husband scooped up the 90 minute slot for Sunday evening and our group had it to ourselves (in swimsuits!) that evening.
It was GORGEOUS, overlooking the water with a creek to cold plunge in and three hot tubs of varying temperatures plus a multi-level sauna.
Our group drifted in and out for the 90 minutes with people coming just to chat and others taking full-advantage of the tubs and sauna and cold plunging.
Afterward, we walked back to the house and everyone got ready for bed.
Day 6 (Monday)
After breakfast, some of us got in our swimsuits, grabbed two paddle boards that one of Bart’s sisters had brought and we went back to Mountain Lake.
The water was pretty cold, but we all jumped in and swam for a while before most of us got out and we pumped up the two paddle boards which the kids took out for an hour or so.
Our last big activity of the trip was whale watching. Bart’s brother had arranged for us to do a private tour and all of us went except for one brother-in-law who was feeling under the weather.
We headed back from the lake, had our “dinner” at lunch time and then packed sandwiches and other lunch foods to eat on the boat since we’d be out for 4 hours and not be back until well after 7 p.m.
Everyone loaded up in the cars and we headed out to catch our boat.
After our forms were signed, we boarded the boat and spent the next four hours seeing all sorts of fun animals like puffins, sea lions, and sea otters.
I was nervous that we wouldn’t actually see whales, but we ended up getting an incredible show when we stumbled on a pod that was playing around tossing a whale calf into the air to help it learn to swim and get comfortable coming in and out of the water.
Our guides were beside themselves – neither of them had ever seen this happen and one of them said he’d been doing whale tours for 7 years without seeing something like this.
We watched them play for a solid 45 minutes and it was absolutely incredible. I felt so lucky!
On our way back, we saw several more whales too, so we really got a show!
When we got back to the house, everyone got busy packing because it would be an early morning the next day to catch our departing ferry (we were booked on the 8:50 a.m. ferry and you need to be there at least 30 minutes early or you lose your reservation plus it’s more than 30 minutes from Doe Bay).
Once everyone had their things packed and ready for the morning, the kids played a few more games before we all headed to bed.
Day 7 (Tuesday)
Everyone was up by about 6:45 and we had a quick breakfast, dealt with all the leftover food and packed up the cars. We were on the road by 7:30 and we had enough time that our car stopped at Orca Bakery to grab some pastries for breakfast. They’d had an amazing selection of things on the 4th but we’d been too full to eat any.
We waited for the doors to open at 8 a.m. and sadly they had a very limited selection with nothing that excited us, so we just got back in the car and headed to the ferry terminal.
We took the ferry back to the mainland and said our goodbyes to family not going back to Utah.
Our flight wasn’t until 5p.m., so no we were in no rush. Back in Anacortes, our family stopped for a delicious brunch at Table (I was ravenous) and then we drove back to Seattle and headed to Pike Place Public Market.
This is one of my favorite places and it was so fun to show the three younger girls around who had never been there (I’d spent a lot of time there with Ella when she was 2 and Bart was on a work client there for a week).
We watched the fish get tossed around, saw the Gum Wall (my girls thought it was revolting), ate clam chowder in sourdough bowls from Jake’s Fish Shop, got pastries at Le Panier, an apple cider and pear slushie and some incredible fresh white nectarines.
We met up with Bart’s sister and brother-in-law and their kids and enjoyed the views over the water while we ate and then we got gelato from Hellenika which was maybe the best gelato I’ve ever had. I didn’t intend to have any but the girls picked out a dutch chocolate and it blew me away when I had a few bites of it.
We walked back to our car (we’d lucked out finding street parking) and drove to the airport where we returned our rental car and boarded our flight.
It was a fantastic trip AND we were so ready to be home in our own beds!
Later this week, I’ll do a whole Q&A post answering the many questions that came in about Orcas Island!
