Deception Pass State Park, day 1

Thursday, October 26, 2017

Heading home.

Ha!  You might be thinking I made a mistake calling the very first day of this next camping trip “Heading home”, but I did that on purpose.

Deception Pass State Park is on the very northern tip of Whidbey Island in Puget Sound in the State of Washington.  I was raised on Whidbey Island from about 10.5 years of age until I left home for college … and even then my parents remained in the family home on the island for several years until they purchased a smaller home on the mainland in Marysville, Washington.  I hadn’t been back to Whidbey for many years prior to this camping trip, so this really did feel like going home to me.

This camping trip was spectacular, even without that “going home” connection.  It was my favorite camping trip of the year, tho as I’ve mentioned, each camping trip at the time is “my favorite trip”.  I keep thinking each one can’t be topped, but I guess I’ll just accept what is given to me and keep on truckin’!  🙂

Being passed on the freeway by an even bigger big white truck.

So …. here I go!  I drove from the RV storage unit in south Puyallup northbound up the major I-5 freeway, right through downtown Seattle, through Everett, through Marysville, stopping at a rest stop just south of Arlington to eat my lunch and have a little walk-about.

Here’s a video (below) from the cab of the big white truck while on the freeway just north of Everett (not that I took this video while driving of course, no siree).  The video will give you a feel for how smooth and quiet and comfortable it is to ride in this truck while towing the trailer.

After lunch at the rest stop, it was back onto I-5 northbound.  Just past the town of Mt. Vernon, I turned left off the I-5 freeway and headed west towards Anacortes.  A little bit past the oil refinery, I turned left off of that highway onto State Route 20, the main north-south road on Fidalgo Island and on Whidbey Island.

To get onto the north end of Whidbey Island, one drives across the Deception Pass Bridge (photo above), with the always churning and confused and often dangerous waters of Deception Pass far below you.  More about this later!

About 5 minutes south of the bridge that put me on Whidbey Island, I turned right and coasted down into the Deception Pass State Park campground.  Ahhhh, peace and quiet.  🙂

Here’s a very short video (below) showing just a wee bit of the drive down into the camping area.

 

I had departed Puyallup at 10am and arrived at my campsite at 2pm … an easy drive on a gorgeous autumn day.  I backed into the spot, plugged in electricity to make sure it worked, then leveled the trailer, unhitched the truck, hooked up the water, then positioned the truck so it was off the roadway and provided some privacy for my trailer door.  I took these photos, set up my chair outside, sat down for a wee rest, and promptly fell sound asleep in the chair.  It just seemed like the right thing to do and, obviously, there was no one around to tell me any differently.

 

 

 

After my nap, I tidied the place up a bit and then took a walk to West Beach which is also inside the Park grounds and is a well-known weekend daytime hangout for locals.

Where I was standing to take the video and photos below, I was looking directly west out through the Strait of Juan de Fuca, out towards the Pacific Ocean which was about 95 miles due west of me as the crow flies (or as the seagull flies).  I imagined there might be some gorgeous sunsets here.

 

If you have good eyes, and look in the lower right quadrant of the photo above, you’ll see Little Towhee had followed me out here and was perched in the beach grass.

 

And in the photo above, she had hopped up onto some driftwood for a better look at things.  She is such a curious bird!

So where am I really?  Below is a map of Puget Sound (click on it to enlarge it).  Tacoma, where I live, is almost at the bottom of Puget Sound; Seattle is a bit above that.  The solid YELLOW arrow points to the south end of Whidbey Island (there’s a ferry that runs across to the island near the south end).  And the solid RED arrow points to the north end of Whidbey Island, specifically to West Beach which is part of Deception Pass State Park.

The land mass immediately north of Whidbey Island is Fidalgo Island … the Deception Pass Bridge connects those two islands.  And northwest of Fidalgo are all of the smaller islands that make up the San Juan Island group, famous among recreational boaters and other vacationing folks!

The white islands further to the northwest are a few of the Canadian Gulf Islands and a little corner of Canada’s Vancouver Island.  The red line at the very top of the map is part of the boundary between Canada and the USA.  I’m not sure what the squiggly red line that’s on land means, so just ignore that please. 🙂

Whidbey Island is the second longest island in the continental USA, beat out only by Long Island in New York, though there are arguments about three other islands in the USA.  Whidbey is 37 miles long and less than 1 mile wide at the narrowest point.  The main highway from north to south is about 60 miles long.  Whidbey is home to the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station on that large northern blob of the island, so you can imagine the homes, businesses, large schools, and other such activities in the area that have grown up around that Navy base.

The rest of the island is comprised of a few small towns, two small schools, rural homes, lots of small “gentleman” farms, some vacation industry businesses, and a healthy and prosperous arts and crafts community.

Native Americans originally inhabited Whidbey and called it Tscha-kole-chy.  A history of the island (and of Island County) is here.

Ok, that’s enough of an introduction.  If you have questions, please do ask.

During the six days of this trip, I visited LOTS of places on Whidbey and explored the edges of Deception Pass itself.  I will share the best tidbits with you.  At the end of the week, with my trailer in tow, I boarded the ferry at the south end of the island to get back to the mainland.  Another adventure!  But that’s a story for another day. 🙂  First, let’s see Whidbey Island!

Thanks for coming along everyone!