After a hiatus of a couple of months, I return to the story of our road trip to Washington state with a visit to Deception Pass State Park. Previous posts include Washington Park, the Bellevue Botanical Garden, John Day Fossil Beds, and Lake Abert.

Deception Pass State Park straddles Deception Pass, the waterway that separates Fidalgo Island from Whidbey Island and Island County from Skagit County. Deception Pass got its name when Joseph Whidbey, a member of the Vancouver Expedition, failed to find the passage on his first exploration of the area in May, 1792. Subsequent exploration in June, 1792 revealed the passage. George Vancouver named it “Deception” because the initial failure to find it had led him to map Whidbey Island as a peninsula. Essentially, the pass “deceived” him.

Deception Pass Bridge connects the two islands in two spans, crossing Canoe Pass on the north and Deception Pass to the south, crossing Pass Island in the middle. The bridge carries a fair amount of traffic (20,000 crossings a day according to Wikipedia) both because it is the only land connection to Whidbey Island and it carries traffic headed to the Port Townsend ferry. The Port Townsend ferry connects to the Olympic Peninsula.

The view of the bridge from the North Beach in the park is impressive. Click on any picture to see a full-sized image.

The water in Deception Pass can flow as fast as 9 knots (10.4 mph, 16.7 kph). We were there as the tide was flowing briskly — the water was flowing into Skagit Bay as it was a few hours after low tide. The flowing water creates all kinds of interesting waves and apparent shears in the flow that are visible from the shoreline.

Continuing my series of posts on our road trip to Washington state this summer, we now visit Washington Park in Anacortes, Washington. Washington Park is a large park on the far west side of Anacortes, past the ferry terminal. Mostly forested, it hosts a boat launch, campground, many places for picnics, and is crossed with trails. A road circles the park and that’s where we went for a walk one beautiful afternoon.

Walking around the park is a popular pastime in Anacortes, and it is reserved for pedestrians from 6am to 10am each day. The park itself is in great condition, with lush forestation in the wooded areas.

We came across a deer nibbling on something by the side of the road. She didn’t seem to mind us at all.

As you come around to the south side of the park, the forest opens up and gives you a great view across Barrows Pass and onto Rosario Strait. In this picture you can see Lopez and Decatur Islands across the strait. The Olympic Mountains can just barely be seen behind Barrows Island on the left. Click on any picture for a full-sized view.

The view is also nice looking eastward, with a nice view of Barrows Bay with the mass of Fidalgo Island behind it. The large mountain on the right is Mount Erie, 1,273 feet (388 m) tall. You can drive to the top of Mt. Erie and enjoy some spectacular views.

As you walk on from the view, you pass a the Havekost Memorial, marking the gravesite of Anacortes pioneer Tonjes Havekost, who donated land for Washington Park.

On our road trip to Anacortes last summer, day three ended in Bellevue, Washington, where we spent a couple of days visiting our older daughter and her fiancé’s family. The day we arrived we went for a walk in the Bellevue Botanical Gardens. The gardens are a beautiful getaway just east of downtown. We arrived at about 7:30pm, 40 minutes before sunset, so the Sun was low in the sky.

There were great contrasts between the Sun-illuminated trees and the places in shadow.

As I wrote last month, we took a road trip from Los Angeles to Anacortes, Washington in July. Taking the inland, US-395 route, our first day took us to Reno, Nevada, and our second to John Day, Oregon.

John Day is a nice small town in eastern Oregon, just over halfway through the state going north on US-395. John Day and the John Day River are named for a hunter from the back woods of Virginia who was attacked by Indians near the mouth of the Mau Mau river 1812. He survived the attack and people started calling the river the “John Day River.” It is interesting to note that he spent no time near where town of John Day is today.

We arrived in late afternoon, checked into the Best Western John Day Inn, and started to think about dinner. We were lucky, the Outpost Pizza Pub & Grill was just a couple of blocks away. I had an interesting chicken dish they call Alice Chicken. It was grilled chicken topped with bacon, mushrooms, cheese, and a sauce. It was pretty good.

We were up early the next morning. After the hotel-provided breakfast, we headed east out of town on US-26. US-395 turned north in Mt. Vernon and we left it behind. Our destination for the day was Bellevue, Washington, but on our route is the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. The national monument has three fairly wide-spread units in central Oregon. Our route would take us by the Sheep Rock Unit.

We turned off of US-26 onto Oregon 19 about five miles east of Dayville. We had a nice 20 minute stop while the highway repair crews ferried us through a very long stretch of one-lane road as they were repaving. Oregon 19 follows the John Day River through a very pretty canyon. After a few miles we came to the Thomas Condon Paleontology Center, one of the major facilities in the national monument.

Unfortunately for us, the center is closed on Mondays. We continued our drive north and stopped at the Foree Picnic Area. There are two short and easy trails here, the Flood of Fire trail and the Story in Stone trail. These trails, both less than a half mile (one kilometer) round trip, take you up the hillside into some interesting rock formations. There is a nice parking lot and information about the formations and trails at the trailhead.

The hills above the John Day River Valley are impressive. They are capped with a layer of lava that was laid down in a large eruption near Burns, Oregon, seven million years ago. This layer is known as the Rattlesnake Formation. Click on any picture to see a full-sized image.

In July, we took a two-week road trip from Los Angeles to Anacortes, Washington and back. We took the inland route, up US-395. Our first day took us up through the San Fernando Valley, on to the Antelope Valley Freeway, past Mojave and Red Rock Canyon and merging onto US-395 just north of Inyokern. The drive up the eastern Sierra is just magnificent. I wrote about our 2011 trip up a similar route and included pictures. We arrived at our hotel in Reno at about 4:00pm.

On our second day, we went north from Reno, past Honey Lake, through Alturas, and then into Oregon. Our target that second day was John Day, Oregon.

We passed through Lakeview, Oregon at about lunch time. We tried to see the Old Perpetual Geyser that is just north of Lakeview, but we couldn’t find it. We stopped for lunch at the Chandler State Wayside 17 miles north of Lakeview. It was good to get out and stretch our legs.

About five miles north of the wayside, in a place called Valley Falls, Oregon 31 splits off from US-395 heading to La Pine. We went left, staying on US-395. Coming up to the junction you get your first glimpse of Abert Rim. This is a very impressive uplift of basalt almost 2,500 feet (760 meters) high. Click on any image to see a full-sized version.

This closer view of Aber Rim shows the basalt cap. According to Wikipedia, Abert Rim was formed over five million years ago when lava flows covered what is now eastern Oregon. Faulting lifted the rim up, creating the dramatic features we see today.

We took a road trip up to Washington state in July. I took a lot of pictures and I am still going through them. Look for some road trip posts in upcoming months.