PNW Road Trip Day 13: Moran and Obstruction Pass State Parks

On day thirteen of our PNW road trip, we were headed for the other side of Orcas Island, to Moran and Obstruction Pass State Parks. We woke up, packed up the car for the day and headed south. We decided to stop for breakfast at Cafe Olga in Olga, Washington. Cafe Olga is not only a restaurant, but also a rustic art gallery for many of the local artists on Orcas. It was so fun to browse through all of the local arts and crafts. I bought a cool knit beanie and some yummy lotions and lip balms. Oh, and we also had a very good breakfast here. Everything seemed fresh and homemade. Yum!

Olga's Yummy Breakfast.

After fortifying ourselves with a nutritious breakfast, we headed a bit further south to Obstruction Pass State Park. This was a beautiful hike and when we arrived at Obstruction Pass, we found a wonderful little crescent shaped beach with lots of shells, stones and driftwood, and some great views too!

This was an interesting sculpture of a raft that someone had put together. It made me feel like we were on a deserted island. Hey, Wilson!

It was very peaceful here.

Next up....Moran State Park. I had been very much looking forward to this visit!

The first place we went was to the watchtower at Mount Constitution. The top of Mount Constitution is the highest place in all of the San Juan's at 2400 feet. This was pretty cool. This place looked rather deceiving from the outside. There were actually many levels where one could climb to and look out. It has a 360 degree view and on a clear day you can see Bellingham, Mount Baker, Mount Rainier, the Cascade Range, Anacortes and Port Townsend, as well as the surrounding San Juan Islands.

These were the gorgeous views from the top of Mount Constitution, even on a not-so-clear day.

After leaving Mount Constitution, we went on a hike to Cascade Falls. By this time, it was late afternoon and it was hard to get a decent photograph of a waterfall, but here is my best attempt below. There were actually a few falls along this trail, but not sure of their names.

After the hike to Cascade Falls, we headed back to Eastsound Village for another Chai Latte from Darwin's Bookstore and a walk around town to shop, have dinner and enjoy the evening. The photos below are some sights around the Eastsound Village.

The beautiful white-washed Outlook Inn and New Leaf Cafe at dusk.

Beautiful Eastsound.

After some shopping and a Chai Latte, we headed back to the hotel room to get cleaned up for dinner. We were sitting in the room discussing our trip over to San Juan Island the next morning to visit a lavender farm and go to Lime Kiln Point State Park....when my mobile phone rang and it was Beau from Outer Island Expeditions with some incredible news. He said that the Orcas were back in the San Juan's (gets me all choked up just thinking about it) and he could take us to them tomorrow afternoon. Needless to say, we canceled our other plans and booked another whale watching trip for the next afternoon. Seeing Orcas was the main thing on our wish list for the San Juan's, so this was extremely exciting news! After getting that great news, we headed out to a casual dinner at a local sports bar and then settled in for the evening. Tomorrow we would see Orcas in the wild!!