NW Washington State (Silver Creek, WA)

We spent most of the summer exploring the Puget Sound area, so this post is going to be filled with a few more photos of all our recent activities.

From La Conner, we have salmon floating in the air...

an interesting hotel on the water...

and a Totem pole in front of one of La Conner's museums.

In Anacortes, we found it interesting to see a piano overlooking the marina...

and a beautiful garden along the sidewalk also overlooking the marina.

We took our son Shaun to Washington Park in Anacortes during his visit while we were in La Conner.  We were very lucky to see a Bald Eagle fly low over our heads.  Sorry, no photo.

The weather was not cooperating and started to drizzle so we did not spend as much time walking and looking around.

Gnarly Tree

We visited Blaine quite often along with a few restaurants with good food.  Hard to say which ones we liked better.

Blaine's city park is filled with blackberries.  We left a couple of times with a small grocery bag half full of ripe berries.

From the city park, we could see the Peace Arch at the Canada/U.S. border.

We did not spend all of our time in Blaine.  We did a little exploring of the surrounding area.

overlooking Blaine's marina

We had visited Lynden once before, but it was so long ago that it was like seeing it for the first time.  It is a very quaint town with Dutch heritage influencing the architecture of the downtown area complete with windmills.

We enjoyed walking the streets, viewing the buildings, and browsing through some of the shops and bakeries.

We spent one day driving to Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest.  First stop was to view the Nooksack Falls.  A little disappointing since we were fenced off from above the falls making it hard for us to see the whole waterfall.  Apparently, some people have a problem with the fence and do not heed the danger signs.  They have a list of several people dying because they wanted a closer look including a mother and her unborn child.  Such a shame.

Second stop was Heather Meadows with a spectacular view in every direction.

And filled with pink and white heathers.

We could not have picked a better day for perfect weather with plenty of sunshine, blue skies and fluffy clouds.

From Heather Meadows, we followed 542 to the end at Artist Point. 

 A very appropriate name with the breath-taking views all around us.

The day had actually become quite warm.  It was odd enough to see people walking in the snow with sandals, but watching them sledding down hills in shorts was even more odd to see.

The last place we visited was the  Historic Fairhaven area in Bellingham.  We spent the morning walking around the downtown area.  Browsed through the Farmer's Market setup in Fairhaven's Village Green and had a delicious lunch at the Colophon Cafe Restaurant.

Hmm, we did not see this one until after we had lunch.  Maybe next time we will stop here.

The downtown area had some interesting places and things to see while we walked off our lunch.

We ended up walking along the Taylor dock.  This dock curves around the point and comes back to land.  We did not go to the other end, but we read that it takes walkers to another city park and more walking trails.

Our next move was to Monroe for less than a week.  We were able to catch up with Sandy's brother and his wife Deb during their free time for lunch and an afternoon visit.  We were also able to spend one evening with Shaun at his new workplace with Kirkland City Hall in the IT office.

After having a pleasant visit with his co-workers and tour, we walked with Shaun to a downtown Turkish restaurant.

Where's the party?

Below is a photo of Shaun's "sometimes" temporary office. The WiFi is strong here, so he finds it easier to sit here when he is outside the office while solving an employee's IT problem online.  We are not sure how he gets any work done with that view, but apparently he does because we heard from a lot of his co-workers that they were grateful to have him working with them.

Now, that's an office with a view

The unique artwork scattered along the route we took to the restaurant and to the park were quite interesting.  The sidewalks were filled with people enjoying the warm evening.  There was a Farmer's Market in the park with live music.  We were beginning to wish we were able to stay longer.

We know we missed a lot of interesting sights, so you know what that means - we will have to visit Shaun and Kirkland's downtown area again.

We had to make an unscheduled stop to Camping World.  We were lucky that they were able to fit us into their busy schedule.  Our Splendide combination washer/dryer had died the week before.  A lot of people think it is easier to use the camps laundry facilities.  Even though the washer is small, we find it more convenient to wash a small load every day than to spent a couple of hours waiting on large loads of laundry.  For us, it was worth spending the day in the CW's parking lot trying to keep four cats cool and calm on one of the hottest days of this summer.  We are not so sure our cats would agree with us on that one.  They did not like sitting in our Honda Fit.  We were able to give them short breaks from the car by letting them sit on a shady grass covered medium near the car until our shade went away.  All four blew enough of their coats inside the car to start another litter of kittens!

View of  Mt. Rainier from Ft. Lewis

While we were waiting for our appointment, we were able to get some shopping done at the Joint Base Lewis McChord.  The view of Mt. Rainier from the Ft. Lewis Exchange parking lot was spectacular.  

We are settled in Silver Creek, WA until after Labor Day.  Hopefully, the crowds will start to slow down after the holiday weekend.  We are not too far from Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens National Parks, so we might try to see one or both before we move south to Oregon.

Happy Trails!