Habs on the Road

We spent an afternoon at Bainbridge Island and enjoyed the Grand Forest and the beach at Fay Bainbridge Park. The ferry ride was so nice – beautiful weather! We met some nice people who live on the island (and who were considering moving to Arkansas!).

We camped for one night at Deception Pass State Park, which was our first time to camp in the van! Really pretty campground with old growth trees that are massive! Tree trunks are 4-5’ across on many of the trees!

Trying to get the van setup for sleeping was a challenge! So much junk to move out of the way so the sleeping pass could be setup for the kiddos. It was comical. As I was trying to get things squared away, I told Carla and the kids, “It’s like an RV, but worse!” We laughed pretty hard at that. 😂

Overall, the first time camping in the van went pretty well! Most of us slept pretty well, but could be better if I make a couple of minor changes. I forgot to level out the van, as it felt pretty level when we went to bed. I kept waking up rolling toward one side.

Unfortunately, we only booked one night at the campsite because it was so busy and there was no more availability. We spent most of the first afternoon setting everything up, and most of the next morning putting everything away, which didn’t leave much time to just sit and relax. Next time we need to book a minimum of two nights even if we only stay for one night.

After we got everything put away and checked out, we went over to Rosario Beach and checked out the tide pools. It’s neat to think I used to go to this beach when I was really young, and now our kids have been there!

If you look in the lower left part of the photo above, you’ll see a rope on the ground. They had a guided tour set up so that people would stay near the rope and not do too much damage to the overall tide pools. The lady down there overseeing that area said they had over 20,000 visitors in the summer and it really starts to do damage when everybody’s poking and picking at everything. Crazy…that’s the first time we’ve been tide-pooling and had to stay on a certain path! But it makes sense I suppose.

They had a little cones set up along the path with photos of things to look for, like sculpin fish, anemones, crabs, etc. Unfortunately, low tide was at 7AM so the tide was about half way in by the time we got there around noon. We were hoping to see a starfish, but they are located in the deeper areas that were already covered up with water.

We then headed north to Bellingham since we will need to be up that way on Tuesday for the roof rack installation. We are thinking we will go explore the North Cascade Mountains over the next couple of days! Tripp and I were really disappointed we didn’t have time to make breakfast at our campground this morning so we may try to do that in the woods sometime this weekend.