While we have the Puget Sound nearby, we rarely get to see it. The kids and I needed to see some country, and water. I decided we'd go north and pop into the cities of Mt. Vernon, Burlington, and Bellingham as goals. I printed out the addresses to each city's visitor center to plug them into the GPS and off we went. That morning, I found out that the last tulip field in Mt. Vernon was blooming. It's $5 to enter the field and well worth it. I've never analyzed a tulip up close. They're tall, about a couple of feet high, and stout. They produce bright colors of white, orange, purple, and red. Hybrids come in all sorts of color mixtures and shapes. It's beautiful to walk through.
I liked Burlington and we were even delayed by a passing train. You know the name - Burlington Northern and Santa Fe (BNSF). All these Washington small towns have nice, old downtowns. I wanted to drive up the Skagit River to Concrete, but was told that with our short time, it would be better to take Highway 11 - the Chuckanut Route, to Bellingham. That's right, Chuckanut, I don't make this up. It goes through farm country and then along the coast like Highway 1 at Big Sur. Very nice drive through woods and lookouts over the Samish Bay. There's supposed to be a set of falls near Whatcom Lake, but we couldn't find it. Whatcom Lake is just outside of Bellingham. The county is called Whatcom. I could be wrong, but I believe it was named prior to the personal computer and the internet. Before heading back we ate wonderfully at a Mexican restaurant. No shortage of these, even here, 17 miles below the Canadian border. The owners are from Guadalajara. The food was good. Not exceptional, but good. When we were done, I checked the odometer. We'd done less than 200 miles up and back.
Comments
Post a Comment