Vintage Modern: A Slice of Paradise

Jake and I went to the San Juan Islands for what I call a "mini moon" the day after our wedding, so keep in mind that these pictures below are over a year old {that's why I look so ~~skinny~~ young}. We had already decided that we wanted to go to Italy for our real honeymoon, but it took a while to save {almost a year}, so we took a one week trip to San Juan and Lopez Island to celebrate our nuptials. I had never been before and it had been decades since Jake last went. I don't think he remembered much and it seemed like it was the first time for both of us.

We arrived on Saturday after checking out of Hotel Andra, making a quick trip to Starbucks and then heading up North to catch the ferry in Anacortes. Our first stop was Backdoor Kitchen! It was so good. Probably our best meal of the trip. Yummmm!

Jake's fresh salmon!

My vermicelli!

Enjoying our wine in the "garden"

We saw this gem on our way to dinner our first night. Pretty classy.

We spent a lot of time lounging in the pool and hot tub area each night at our hotel, Earthbox. That was kind of fun! We definitely felt like we were on vacation.

We also went to the Pelindaba Lavender fields which was amazing and so pretty! They lad lavender EVERYTHING! We even tried lavender lemonade which was delicious.

One of our favorite photos from the trip

We cut our own bouquet of lavender flowers which are now dried in our living room!

Lovely lake in the background and lavender lemonade

Love this one too!

Lots of lavender drying!

How it's made

Old Still

The next day, we went Wine Tasting! And we got to meet the camel {her name is Mona}. Thats right. A camel lives in Washington. Read more about her story here.

San Juan Vineyards

The grapes

She is intrigued by us.

Coming closer!

And closer!

Me and my friend. I wanted to pet her but Jake said it's not a good idea.

Oh - I forgot about.... a funny story! Well, maybe not funny. But, before we went over to see the camel, we did a bit of wine tasting at the vineyard {they have a small tasting room} and we saw two little boys cross the street to go see Mona. I assume his parents were tasting wine at the winery. About 5 minutes later, we heard a blood curling scream {Jake predicted that the camel would bite one of the boys and we think it totally did!} So a group of bikers come walking over to the winery {you had to cross a busy street} with the two boys in tow and one of the boys was holding his hand really stiff and sobbing. We still don't know the whole story of what happened. The end. Wasn't that a good story? Well, it was over a year ago.

After that {or maybe it was a different day}, we went hiking to a popular whale sight seeing spot, but alas, no whales. After that, we tried the Duck Soup Inn which was really good. I highly recommend it.

The lighthouse in the background but no whales :(

Dinner at Duck Soup Inn

I don't have a lot of pictures, but we did drive around the island a bit. One of the weirdest things we saw was a goat in a diaper in a boat at Friday Harbor. I know, right? Weird.

Goat with diaper. What the heck?

Dinner on Friday Harbor, San Juan Island

Can you see the goat in the background?

After leaving Friday Harbor, we headed to Lopez Island for a couple days to stay at one of my friend's homes which she so graciously offered to let us use!

View from our deck

We did a lot of reading and eating since there is not much to do on Lopez, but it was so relaxing and it was nice to see how slow we could get our pulses.