Anniversary Trip Part Two - Lummi Island

Tuesday morning we drove up to Lummi Island (off the coast by Bellingham). 

After a very short ferry ride, we arrived on the little island - population 816.

We were pretty hungry so we ate our packed lunch (from a delicious French bakery in Seattle) at some picnic tables. I commented to Alan how the only thing we could hear were the birds. Bliss!

I made Alan pose with our beast of a rental vehicle. We would never choose something so big, especially for just the two of us, but the rental agency's little deal to get the best price was having the computer pick the car for you and (yay) we got the biggest thing on the lot. Fortunately we didn't have to drive and park this thing in Seattle. We just walked everywhere. 

So, unpleasantness aside, let's get on to the good stuff!

This was the view from our Sunset room at the B&B. 

As soon as we got settled, we decided to go for a bike ride and explore the island (the bed and breakfast has some bikes for borrowing). It was so beautiful and peaceful! We had a map of some artist's studios so we stopped in at a few of those. Cool stuff! One lady spun yarn from dog fur!

The boats are put out to sea on these train track like things. 

We had dinner at the B&B's cafe and then we went down for a walk on the beach.

Then we went back to the cafe for a little bingo. I got a pot of tea and we shared a yummy chocolate something or other. It was fun to hear all the locals chatting about island life. 

We played American bingo for about 5 rounds, then since one of the employees is British we played British bingo. They don't call the letters, just the numbers, but they do a little rhyme for each one. Something like 'Take a dive - 55'. It was fun to listen to her call them out in her cute little accent. I won a round and got a movie theater gift certificate (one we can use here, too).

After a hearty breakfast the next morning, we went on a hike in the lushest place I think I've ever been.

Look at all those green ferns! Everywhere you looked there were ferns, ferns and more ferns. 

And moss - lots of moss!

These were taken from the outlook

It was pretty cloudy. It rained during the hike, but we couldn't feel it because the canopy of trees was so thick.

On our way back down we saw this doe on the path. See her way off in the distance? She just stood there staring at us so we didn't move.

Then she started walking toward us!

 Here's another creature we saw on the hike. Super Slug!

 

That night we had reservations at the restaurant at the bed and breakfast. Alan had heard about it because the chef was the apprentice of a world famous chef in Copenhagen. That's how we ended up at Lummi Island. We come for the food!

All day long they smoked salmon in this little smoke house.

The menu consisted of 5 courses, but then they bring you little 'snacks' throughout the meal. They ended up serving us 16 different things!
Here are just a few of the things we had.

Smoked mussels - served in a steaming box

Halibut skin

Pickled oyster - served on a bed of rocks

Organic grains with razor clams and upland cress

Weathervane scallops with mustard leaves

Roasted escarole with pickled onions (aren't those tiny flowers so pretty?) 

There's our smoked sockeye - it was absolutely fantastic and we got to eat it with our fingers!

They served the bread in a wooden box filled with piping hot stones so it stayed warm. I loved the bread but they served it with pan drippings from a chicken and I was not a fan of that. It was the only thing I didn't like during the whole meal. Everything else was amazing!

Our main course - spot prawns with wild beach plants.

One of our desserts - wild roses with salmonberries

Just a little note about the salmonberries - they grow wild everywhere around the island, but we didn't know what they were. On a walk earlier that afternoon, Alan bravely tried one, but I declined saying I didn't want to get sick, especially before our nice dinner. Since we didn't know the name of them, Alan started calling them chicken berries since I was too chicken to eat one. Of course, when they served them to us at dinner, I was teased to no end!

The dinner lasted over 2 hours and right about when we were getting our desserts  we witnessed this beautiful sunset. We had the best seat in the house. We sat smack in the middle of the window overlooking the beach. Breathtaking!

The next morning it was time to leave (boo) but we took some time to relax in the adirondack chairs before heading out.

This is a shot from the ferry of the mainland taken right as we were taking off. We really weren't very far off the mainland at all, even though AT&T thought we were abroad. Ha!

Our flight didn't leave until 8:30 pm so we took the round about way to Seattle and stopped in wine country. We took a tour at  Chateau Ste Michelle, the oldest winery in Washington and Alan made a friend. 

 We had an absolutely fabulous time! It was so nice to get away, just the two of us, for a while. Thank you to my parents for watching the boys and taking care of our plants and Homer and the chickens! It was a blessing to  not have to worry, knowing that everyone was in such good hands.

Anniversary Trip part one - Seattle

Alan and I took a trip last week to celebrate our 10th anniversary.

Heading to the airport Sunday morning. The boys spent the night at my parents' Saturday night so we had a leisure morning getting ready. 

We arrived in Seattle around 2:30 and after check in we went for a walk down by the water.
There's a new giant ferris wheel that we decided not to go on, but thought looked cool.

Being attacked by a large metal squid. Scary.

Of course we had to check out Pike's fish market. This freakish thing is a monk fish that was on a string and moved at random times. We witnessed a young girl almost pee her pants.

The next morning we stopped at a cafe for breakfast, then walked all over town sightseeing. 

This was taken on a tour of the underground. The level that Seattle is at now is 15 ft higher than it used to be. They had a rather nasty sewer problem at the start. Look at this sewer pipe. 6 inches in diameter! What were they thinking??

 I won't go into detail about the problems they faced (seriously gross), but after the entire downtown burned to the ground, they rebuilt at a higher level. The business owners wanted to start rebuilding before all the dirt was eroded down so the city officials said they could but had to build their buildings at least 4 stories high and had to put an entrance on the second floor so when the dirt was finally put in they could use that second entrance as their main entrance. Hence, the underground. Some business still use that underground for extra seating or whatever.

 All throughout the Pioneer district you'll see these little glass tiles on the sidewalk. This is looking up through them as we walked on our underground tour.

It was a very interesting tour and I learned a lot about Seattle. 

Next was lunch at a local brewery.

And what trip to Seattle would be complete without visiting the Space Needle

Tourist photo! What happened to my eyes??

We were hoping to see Mt. Rainier but it was too cloudy. What?!? Too cloudy in Seattle? No way!

The streets of Seattle are much like those in San Francisco - steep!

We walked and walked on Monday. Along the way we saw this guy hammering away.

And these guys slaving away torching glass.

Oh! I almost forgot about our celebrity sighting! There were signs up in the restaurant we ate in on Tuesday night about Cobi Jones coming that night. I was like, 'Who??' Alan knew he was a soccer player and he showed up a few minutes before we left. I was just wowed. So was the whole city of Seattle. Sarcasm. There were like 7 people in the restaurant and all were clueless that Cobi Jones was showing up. 

The next day we headed to Lummi Island. Stay tuned......