Camping on an Island

One of Madilyn's finds as we wait for the ferry.

In general, me and camping are not friends. Our relationship did not start out on a good note and its kind of remained sour since then. Unfortunately, the kids love it and I think it is good family time. Jeremy had to do some work on San Juan Island this weekend. Well...why not a family camping trip at the same time?

Like all of our best intentions and exciting plans, things didn't go as we had anticipated. Because of our own folly we missed the 2 pm ferry, leaving us sitting in the parking lot for 3 hours waiting for the next one. Luckily its next to a good beach. So the kids played in the sand looking for pretty rocks and building sandcastles, while Jer and I tried to hit old pillars with rocks. I was pathetic. At one point in my life I could throw a baseball from home plate on my knees (playing catcher of course) to second base, easy peasy. Needless to say Jeremy won the contest.

The ferry ride was great. The kids thought it was extremely exciting.

We finally get there. Get the tent set up, we all fit in it, great dinner, get everyone asleep. The night was uneventful. The baby only woke up once! Beautiful day. The guys went off to cut wood. The kids jumped on a trampoline, Garrett played with a monster truck in a sandbox for hours. We got to go to a couple of beaches. The only thing that would have made it better was if Jer could have done everything with us.

You're thinking, wow, that sounds like a great camping trip. Oh it was until we tried to go home. We decided to get to the ferry an hour early, park the car in line and go see the shops since the ferry terminal is right in Friday Harbor. We get there and the parking lot is full of cars getting on another ferry. No problems, the attendant sent us to a second lot. Well when the time came to go down to the main lot, they didn't send up an employee and it was chaos. Cars that had just arrived were zooming past people who'd already been waiting, some poor fella in an RV couldn't get out, horns were honking, people were yelling, the guy in front of us wouldn't go. We finally get back to the main parking lot and ITS FULL! Yes all the hubbub and people arriving after us had filled it up. Oh, yes. Anger my friends. This was for the 6:30 ferry. Another didn't come til 10! The attendant, I felt bad for him by now, sent people back up to the secondary lot and said to come down at 6:10. He also put a number on our car so they knew who needed to get on. 6:10 comes along and we all drive down and the guy sends us back to the second lot. Now we're in the back! Argh!!! Can you sense how maddening it was becoming? The kids were confused and tired and wanted to get out the car. Jeremy was driving and was at his wits end.

But we got on the ferry. Phew.

Until then I could see why people would live on such a beautiful island, but sorry dealing with the ferries would be too much for me.

On the drive home Emma complained that her stomach hurt. She's gotten car sick before so I sat with her and she had a bag. Nothing happened. Nothing until midnight when we were at home. Poor thing threw up twice. Three hours later when I finally got her back to bed, Grant woke up twice between 4 and 7.

Really camping, it wasn't your fault that things ended up beyond stressful and I was completely exhausted but you're an easy scapegoat.

One of the beaches, I don't remember the name. Those are the Olympics across the water.

Gorgeous, False Bay were the kids played for a couple of hours.

I didn't get many pictures because my camera was almost out of battery and I was holding Grant most of the time. Every time I tried to take a picture he would grab my camera.