July 21, 2013: Whidbey Island

Drove north from our campground to Greenbank Farms where we bought a delicious homemade cherry pie and specialty cheeses.  Next weekend is their Loganberry Festival and medieval costumed horseback riders were practicing.  Too bad we won't be here for that as it looks like fun.

We continued driving north to Coupeville, a small town that sits on Penn Cove, home of world-famous mussels.  The mussels are pulled up on chains onto large platforms spread out across the cove.  Unfortunately, I had a huge breakfast, so we didn't stop for one of my favorite meals - steamed mussels. 

We did find a wonderful little byway that runs along the whole bay with a pullout where we could watch folks sunning themselves, walking dogs, strolling the beach, and fishermen putting in their boats while we had a light lunch and a nap.

A little further north, we went through the Island's major town, Oak Harbor and on to Deception Pass. We walked both sides of the bridge across the narrow passage between Whidbey and Fidalgo Islands, reminding us of the Thousand Lakes on the New York State/Canada border.

 

We continued north on Fidalgo Island to the town of Anacortes, the gateway to the San Juan Islands where ferries run to and from the islands as well as other parts of Washington and Canada.  Our campsite is next to the marina, basically a parking lot, but with full hookups and convenient to the ferry terminal for our trip tomorrow through the San Juan Islands to Victoria, Canada.

July 20, 2013: Seattle to Whidbey Island

We left the campground mid-morning, driving to Bellevue's Best Buy to get a camera.  Afterwards, we drove north to Mukilteo to take the Boeing Tour.  It is the largest building by volume in the world and they assemble 777, 747, 767 and 787's here.  Being Saturday, there were few workers so we didn't get the full effect of the assembly process, but it was still impressive.  They have 3-5 planes of every type in production at the same time.  No photos allowed.

It was a short two miles to the ferry terminal for a 20 minute trip over to Whidbey Island, known for artists, rural landscapes, beaches and boating.  On the ferry, I called ahead to private campgrounds and they were all full and the state park campgrounds just had messages saying they operated on a reservation system in summer, but reservations had to be made 24 hours ahead.  Hmmm, we would hate to have to drive all afternoon to get off the island just to get a campsite.  So, off the ferry we drove north on Whidbey to the first state park we could find.  The center of the island is mostly rural farmland and about 1/3 of the way up, we took a road to the western side of the island to South Whidbey State Park that has beaches and a campground. The sign out front said the campground was full, but we thought we would stop and ask anyway.  Good news!  They keep one spot in case one of the reserved sites has a problem and the park ranger said we could have it.  Nice quiet site with electric. 

We took a walk down the steep cliffs to the beach where it was high tide and there was virtually no beach left.  These are popular clamming beaches at low tide.  We returned to the campsite for dinner and a campfire for roasting marshmallows.