Washington State Parks Are Awesome!

These past couple of days, T, Brad, Jessica, the dogs and I went adventuring at Deception Pass State Park on Whidbey Island. The park is between Anacortes and Oak Harbor along hwy 20 for you geography buffs out there. The entire trip was a hoot.

Where does a guy even begin? A miniature (and not very factual nor eloquent) history lesson. Deception Pass is named so because some sailor named Joseph Whidbey discovered in 1792 that the island was--in fact--actually an island. Beforehand, Mr. Whidbey was convinced it was a...um...whatever it is they call a chunk of land that sticks out but is connected to the mainland (I can't think of the term, for the life of me). He was deceived, hence, Deception Pass.

Later on, in the 1880's, a smuggler named Lawrence "Pirate" Kelly used the pass to bring in illegal Chinese immigrants as cheap labor along the Pacific Coast. There are two islands located right next to the pass. One is called Strawberry island, the other is named Ben Ure Island, named after Lawrence Kelly's sidekick.

I guess the operation these rogues had going on was that Kelly's wife, who was a Native American and knew the terrain better than anyone else, would hideout on Strawberry Island, which is visible from the deeper waters of the Puget Sound. Kelly's wife would start campfires to alert the smugglers whether or not the coast was clear to enter the bay and drop off the immigrants on Ben Ure Island.

The creepy and morbid part about all of this is that if the coast wasn't clear, Kelly and Ure would put the immigrants in casks and throw them overboard, so as to not be caught by the Coast Guard. Sometimes the immigrants made it to shore, sometimes not.

So that's the background.


We arrived at our campsite late Sunday night after driving about 30-40 minutes. Not a bad drive at all. You know, right along the mountain range and out into the chain of islands.

We set-up the tent and started a fire. We discovered the pleasure of Rainier beer, made from the hops of the Yakima Valley.

In 16oz. cans. Eat your heart out, Old Style.

On Monday morning we drove to Oak Harbor to find some coffee and some Wi-Fi so Jessica could take an online test. After not finding anything local after first, we succumbed to Starbucks, where we discovered--after buying our coffee--that they didn't have services at that particular franchise location, but wi-fi was available at the location on the other side of town. Little did we know that Starbucks sells you a gift card in order to use their services. So, not having any of that, we eventually found a shop located in a strip mall that closed at 1pm and had a church in the back. Jessica was successful in her academic pursuits and we were all happy for her. After buying some groceries and firewood, we headed back to the park.

One of the strange facets about Deception Pass State Park is that its located close to an Air Force Base, so you'll be walking around the campgrounds when all of a sudden the air starts rumbling and then there's this kind of screeching noise and you look up and see an F-14 (or whatever the devil those fighter jets are) just zooming on by, practicing flight patterns or making surprisingly tight turns considering how low they're flying over a civilian area. It was sort-of cool, considering I've never seen those kinds of jets in action, but trust me, the noise is pretty played out after a few fly-bys.

We took a great hike up the side of the island to the bridge. A good chunk of our photos are from this stretch of the trail. You can see those photos here. The water in the islands is cold and clear. You can tell by the smooth edges of the stones you find on shore that the current and tides are strong. The bridge itself was built in 1935, but standing beneath it, you'd never guess. It just doesn't look that old. The marvels of architecture are beyond me.

From the bridge we hiked up to Goose Point, a vista at the top of the island. You'll notice in our set of photos the funny "bald" photo. The tops of the island hills have these strange bare spots surrounded by patches of prairie. It's really unusual. Also, some of the trees have this bizarre casing around their trunks. Its orange and looks almost like plaster. There are chunks missing where the tree trunk--as we would imagine a tree looking--is exposed. Hikers have carved all sorts of garbage into the casing on these trees, so it leads me to wonder if maybe the casing is synthetic. It looks very natural and lifelike though, and I also wonder if the flora on top of the island have adapted to the high winds. I'll learn more about this at some point. We spent a good chunk of time taking in the view before hiking back down the trail to our campsite. The hike from our site to the top of Goose Point took probably about two hours, but we made plenty of stops to see the beach and the bridge.

Upon returning to the campsite, we had an early meal and relaxed for a bit. After eating, we walked down to the southern edge of the park, which features some smaller sand dunes and a long stretch of beach. It was here we discovered that the dogs absolutely adore the water. They played around and jumped in and out, and I discovered earlier in the day that if you throw a rock in the water near them, they will chase it down like tennis ball or squeaky toy. Adorable.

We then walked back to the campsite for kabobs, beer and roasted marshmallows for a late meal. We sacked out for the night. (To our friend Jake, who hooked us up with absolutely amazing sleeping bags that keep us downright toasty throughout the night, we really cannot thank you enough.)

It rained early Tuesday morning, so we packed up pretty quickly and drove home. The dogs were pooped for the rest of the day and I guess, so were we. But the trip was a blast and I can't wait to scope out some more of the State parks around here.

Again, the link to the accompanying set of photos is here. Mom and dad, if this technology is too complicated, please email me and I will send you the photos personally. I love you.