Bay View State Park – Bay View, Washington State

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We just arrived home from a weekend at Bay View State Park. It was great camping with my sister and her husband and we left our kids and dogs at home. That makes for a much simpler and more relaxing weekend.

• Simpler because no kids means less meal planning, groceries, cooking and cleaning. Don’t get me wrong, I love to have these 2 great kids with us, but it is much simpler without them.

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Relaxing because we had no dogs. No early morning walks, no barking, no untangling of leashes from around camp chairs and no worrying when we are away from the site for an extended time. I do miss taking them for walks but that is easy enough to do on our own and my sister had her dogs so walks were still required.

Skip directly to my campground advice. 

Here is what we did on our trip

Without the kids or dogs we spent Saturday morning shopping at the outlets and the afternoon in the town of La Conner. This is the first time I have been to that quaint little tourist town. There is a public boardwalk that fronts the Swinomish Canal where fishing boats dock for safe access to Puget Sound.  La Conner’s streets are  lined with shops featuring local artisan items such as blown glass, pottery, painting and Lavender everything. I fell in love with some cool oil drum items but they aren’t cheap and there is no way we could get them across the border. That and Blair said there is no way in hell we were buying them. So with that decided we just poked through the store, stopped for lunch on a  patio overlooking the canal and tried out each of the 4 wine tasting rooms on the adjacent street.

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Wine tasting is one of my favourite pastimes when we are on vacation but I must say La Connor is not a destination to head to if you just want to focus just on that. The first room we went to gave us a wine from New Zealand to try. It was good but I like to try out the local wines.  We persevered and were rewarded with the last one being a pleasant surprise. Silver Bell Winery featured their own wines and it was run by the owners themselves. We found all 4 of the wines we sampled to be good and the owners were pleasant to visit

Friday and Saturday night we enjoyed our campsite’s massive yard space.  I say yard space because it was so large and hedged that it felt like you were in someone’s backyard.  My sister’s dogs were off leash and not once did they notice anyone walking by, nor ever attempted to find their way out.  So we talked around camp fires and tried desperately to drink all the extra bottles of wine we bought since Canadians can only bring 2 bottles each back through customers.

The Campground

The sites are ranked P= preferred B= basic E= economical and they are priced accordingly. As a general rule the “P” sites are worth the extra money. They are larger, easier to get into and much more private.  If possible book one of these.
We had sites 40 & 43. Site 40 was rated as a “P” and it was that. The site had a HUGE grassy area and was surrounded by bush giving you complete privacy. Other good sites to get would be 44, 46, 60, 61, 67, 73 and 75. If you want one of the sites with hook ups try to get sites 3 or 4. They are not private but do have beautiful views of the bay. Sites 20 & 24 are the best serviced sites in the loop followed by 21, 22, and 23.

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Campground highlights

1. Very private site in the unserviced loop if you get a “p” site
2. The rating of the sites makes it easier to know what you are booking.
3. Great open field for group games.
4. Level and easily accessible sani dump.  There was also no line-up since there aren’t all that many trailers/ RVs in the campground.
5. Easy walk to the bay which was great sunsets and park area.
6. Large clean bathrooms
7. Handy dog tie-up post at the bathrooms.

Campground lowlights

1. The “E” sites are very small
2. The sharp angles to get in to some of the site, along with the narrow one way road, makes parking larger trailers difficult.
3. No real hiking or biking trails within walking distance of the park.
4. Very few serviced sites and of the serviced sites there are only a few that are decent in size.

Things to do

1. Burlington Outlet Mall
2. Walking Main Street -La Conner, Washington
3. Antiquing – Anacortes, Washington
4. Tulip Festival – La Conner

Links

• North Sound Wine Trail
• Tulip Festival
• Tourism La Conner
• Tourism Anacortes
• Burlington Outlet Mall
• Pelindaba Lavender
• Swinomish Casino

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