Sunday on San Juan

We woke early to prepare for Church, but then forgot our scriptures anyways. We went to the ferry to head over to Friday’s Harbor on the San Juan Island. Church was held in a small meetinghouse in town, along with three or four other islands by way of teleconferencing phone calls. They call it “phone church” or “church in a box” since they pull out a speaker phone and microphone and plug it in. So potentially you could have someone giving a talk from one of the satellite groups over the phone while the main group sits in the small chapel miles away. Of course, Orcas was one of the other islands with a group. They met at the local library in East Sound so we could have met for church 15 minutes away, but went all the way to another island. This was fine, though, because this gave us a reason to go exploring on another island.

San Juan Island is the actual location of the famed Pig War. To make this history lesson short, both English and Americans settled on the disputed islands of the Puget Sound. When an English pig was killed by an American when it was in his potato patch, troops were deployed. For 12 years they waited until a third party drew up the borders for the islands. The American Camp is a large, dry, grassy hilltop near the cliffs overlooking the water. The English Camp, much nicer, was near a small bay with green grass, an orchard, large maple trees, and thick forest surrounding it.

We also stopped by the Lime Kiln Lighthouse overlooking the same waters we had been at the day before. Again we saw a few whales in the distant waters.

Also during our driving about on the island we were passing a field with bales of hay lying out – placed there to look like two unfortunate souls had been a little too close to the baler.