Ferry ride to the Island

Yesterday we decided to spend the beautiful day on Bainbridge Island. We got on the ferry just as it was pulling out into the water; perfect timing. The kids love to stand in the wind at the front of the ferry, so we went up stairs and went outside. Dummy me, I didn't even think about the wind and when son stepped over to look out at the water his Clifford the big red dog hat blew right off his head and over the side of the ferry. He was really upset (and so was I), so we had to go back inside and sit for a minute. We talked it over and after a while decided that he wanted his hat to go into the water because a turtle or a fish really needed a nice hat like his. Crisis averted and fun day saved.

We'd never been to Bainbridge before so we went downtown to see what was there. We had lunch then had Ice cream at Mora. I guess this is THE place to go, and after eating the dark chocolate mint I can see why! Yummy! My plan was to find some hiking and maybe a beach. So we headed to the Grand Forest thinking that with a name like that it had to be good. Well, after driving around for a while with a map and a GPS we couldn't even find it. So we went to this park with a HUGE castle playground. I don't think I've ever seen a bigger play structure than this one. They had bridges, lookout towers, xylophones, ladders, climbing walls, swings and even a little covered sitting space in the middle for the parents. I want one of these here! We all loved the playground, and when the kids' faces got a little too red from the heat we got back in the car and went in search of hiking. Next we tried the Gazzam lake park. This one was almost as hard to find as the Grand Forest. We drove on these little non-maintained roads until we found a small sign for the park and a closed gate. No luck here.

Next stop was the Faye Bainbridge State Park. A state park has to be be easy to find and open, right? Right! This one was pretty nice. They had spots for camping, bathrooms and a nice Big sign that was easy to see! I was expecting a sandy beach here, but didn't find that. It had a TON of drift wood that you had to climb over to get to the beach, then the beach was all rocks (smooth rocks but rocks all the same). We got there at low tide, so there was about 10 or more feet of this seaweed covered "beach" with little tide pools before you got to the water. Well, this turned out to be better than a sandy beach would have been. The kids loved the tide pools. They were filled with tiny crabs, shells, sea weed and lots of wet sand. Daughter collected a lot of perfect shells in her bucket while son dug holes in the sand and made mud pies. Fun!

We then had dinner at this place that had terrible service but ok food and got back on the ferry home. This time we stayed in the car and used our binoculars to look out at the sail boats and Mt. Rainier. The kids were asleep by the time we got home. So they got carried up to bed and slept through getting their pj's on.

I think when we go again we'll just go straight to the beach and skip the search for the hiding forests. (Pictures will be added later)