Friday Harbour, San Juan Islands, Washington

 Well, today didn't turn out as I'd planned at all....we planned to hop on the intra-island ferry for the 8:30AM trip over to Orcas Island.  I had an entire day planned of hiking and touring cool spots before jumping back on the 4PM ferry to go back to Friday Harbour.  We went over to the ferry dock and waited, only to eventually be told that the ferry wasn't going to run that route because of some difficulty.  We could come back for the 11AM ferry.  We decided that wouldn't give us enough time to do anything comfortably so we just scrapped the idea.  

There still were a few things we hadn't seen on San Juan Island, so we headed back over to the American Camp area. 

 

 

 We hiked the Mt. Finlayson loop for a little over 3 miles.

 

About 1/2 of the trail was exposed grassland.

The Cattle Point Lighthouse in the distance.

 

About 1/2 of the loop was this lovely forest.  Quiet and cool.

 

We went down to South Beach for a nice beach walk.

 

Some of the kelp had washed ashore.

 

I got a close up of the kelp.  Such a weird other-worldly plant.  I touched some of it - not slimy at all.

 

We had a very nice long walk on the beach - amazingly - not a single piece of trash/plastic/glass was found!

 

Leaving the beach, view back towards the mainland.

 

And the last thing we did was find a lavender farm.  This one lets you "cut your own".....

 

It's lovely - I expected it to smell nicely - but it was pretty odorless.....

 

Oh, happy birthday to Duane!!