Moran State Park

We visited Moran State Park in July of 2017 – before I began this blog and before we got Grizzly. In fact, we picked up Grizzly on our way back from this camping trip. I can’t find any photos from this trip, unfortunately, so this will be a short description.

Moran State Park is on Orcas Island, so we had to drive a ways north from Seattle and then take a ferry over. It’s sort of horseshoe-shaped island and not very big. The par itself is big and includes a variety of activities for kids and adults. It has two large lakes where you can rent boats and things. We rented a little rowboat and my husband, me, his brother, and Ranger all took a nice little paddle around the lake. Ranger was uncertain at first but enjoyed himself – until we tossed him into the lake. He can swim but he is not a fan (we had just started learning this about him then) so he swam around for a couple minutes and then hung out in the boat the rest of the time. We barely scratched the surface of everything Moran State Park has to offer – we’d like to go back again and do more hiking.

The campsite was really nice, big with plenty of space for our tent and my in-laws’ RV camper. I remember at one point deer drifted past our campsite – which would have been lovely except for Ranger feeling it was his job to protect us from said deer. Lots of barking.

The island has a few restaurants – but most of them were not dog-friendly. One hostess even gave me attitude when I politely asked if we could bring our dogs to their outdoor seating area. We did eventually find a really nice restaurant with outdoor seating right on the water that allowed us to bring Ranger in. I wish I could remember the name of it – I think it was Cascade Bay Store & Grill but I’m not sure.

One day we drove over to Deer Harbor for a private sailing tour with Northwest Classic Daysailing. We couldn’t bring Ranger on the boat so on our way there we dropped Ranger off at Eastsound Kennels for a few hours. It was really convenient to be able to drop him and pick him up after the activity.

I suffer from motion sickness so I took a Dramamine pill beforehand which kept me from getting sick but also made me fall asleep for most of the ride. What I do recall of the daysail was that it was unexciting – but pretty. If you want a relaxing ride around the island it’s a good option, but don’t expect to see a lot of wildlife.