Our next stop took us to Anacortes, the gateway to the many  islands  in the Pacific Northwest.  Among the many things to do and islands to visit,  we chose to ride the ferry and and hop to San Juan island.

We decided to check out San Juan Island on Friday the 25th, since it appeared to be the nicest weather day.  We’d been wanting to take a nice bike ride, so my brilliant idea was to give it a shot on our bikes.  “We’re in no hurry, so we’ll make a day of it, bring our lunch along and save money by not taking the car on the ferry”, I said.  Yeah, how tough could it be?

Well, I had my answer a few hours later.  Wow, what a hard ride!  We rode over 28 miles total and faced several brutal hills – not at all what the web sites I had checked out reported.  We were exhausted at the end of the day, but we made it and what a beautiful ride.  We checked out Friday Harbor, Roche Harbor, the alpaca farm and the Lime Kiln Point State Park Lighthouse to watch for Orca whales.  It appeared they were taking the day off, since we looked for them for over an hour as we rode down the coast and I saw only one very briefly.  Even the whale watch tour boats couldn’t locate them on that day.  And the best news?  Mona Liza lost two pounds from that one grueling ride!  Funny, she doesn’t seem very excited about doing it again…despite burning 2546 calories.

Nearby our park was a very nice and popular Tommy Thompson trail which we used for our walk. The real beauty of this trail is a mile long  trestle which can be accessed from the park.

Here are some of  our biking pictures and nearby beautiful views.

The trestle across the bay – nice walk or ride

Getting our exercise

That’s us!

View from the bridge at Deception Pass

Deception Pass Bridge

Part of the strenuous ride on San Juan Island

Rationing the remaining water and hoping to see a whale as well

Looking for whales near Lime Kiln Point

Lots of alpacas at this farm

A very tired rider

We had lunch overlooking Roche Harbor

Entrance to Roche Harbor

We’re not in Lodi anymore!

We were the first one out of the ferry

Mt. Baker from the ferry out of Anacortes

One of the ferry that hauls visitors /locals to the Islands

Amazing how many vehicles one of these ferries holds

Appreciating Mount Baker

Our bikes are tied down by a rope and parked with the cars.

Walking our bike to the ferry boat