20-23 June 2021
A week and a half after our Rainbow Falls trip we explore our next park, Larrabee: Washington’s first state park. It’s about an hour and 40 minute drive north of Bellevue and just south of Bellingham, Washington, home of many brew pubs. The park is pleasantly wooded with a cool breeze coming off Sammamish Bay. The sites are small, but our neighbors on either side are pleasant. Both are families with young children. It is a noisy park: Route 11, Chuckanut Drive, passes right by our site and there are also active train tracks close by.
After setting up camp O and I explore a bit. We cross Chuckanut Drive and ascend the beginning of the Fragrant Lake Trail. A short way up we find the InterUrban Bike Trail. Tomorrow we plan to walk our bikes up to this trail and ride towards Bellingham. We also are planning a visit to a brewpub afterwards.
After dinner back at camp we walk the path from the picnic area which leads beneath the railroad tracks and down to the beach. It’s quite scenic on Sammamish Bay. We follow the trail southward along a rocky cliff edge, admiring the view as we go. As I look southward I am astounded that even here we can see Mt. Rainier! It must be at least 150 miles away!
We wake at 6 am, on Monday, June 21, having retired last night at 9. Breakfast is a potato cake with cheese, onion flakes, thyme and pepper. I have to eyeball ingredient quantities as all our rechargeable batteries (and also a couple of non-rechargeable batteries) for our camp scale appear to have died at once! I guess after a summer of no travel, things stop working. The potato cake turns out fine anyway. I think it would be difficult to ruin one. Breakfast and clean up done, we cross Route 11 and walk our bikes up the switchbacks to the InterUrban Trail. We ride 11 km into Fairhaven along a mostly shaded trail. There are a few steeper ups and downs, a couple of which O and I end up walking. Along the path are some nice views of the sound and the San Juan Islands.
After our 22 km round trip O and I are sure we’ve earned a visit to a brew pub. We head to The Boundary Bay Brewery and Restaurant. I order the creamy Irish Stout on nitro and O has the Scotch Ale. Both are very good. For dinner I have yam enchiladas, which are quite substantial, and O has a black bean burger. We’ll have leftovers for tomorrow’s hike up to Oyster Dome. For dessert we share a huge and very fudgy brownie with vanilla icecream. (Unfortunately, vanilla was the only flavor ice cream they had.)
Back at camp we relax, enjoying the perfect weather and the pleasant breeze. We eventually wander back to the beach and find a shady spot from which to watch a great blue heron who has landed on the topmost branch of a pine tree and rests there a long while looking much like a snag. We also observe a pair of kingfishers as they chitter and dip back and forth across our little cove.
The next morning, Tuesday, we wake a bit later than we intended and drive to Bellingham for breakfast at the Birch Door Cafe. O and I each order the apple pancake specialty. The waitress returns after a few minutes to warn us that the servings are “massive.” Do we really want two? After brief consideration we confirm our order. We can always take leftovers with us. The pancakes are indeed massive souffles of apple, brown sugar, cinnamon, butter, egg and pancake. O manages to eat a bit more than half of his. I am quite satisfied after “only” half. The remainder is carefully stored in our fridge for consumption at home.
Now we drive south from Bellingham on I-5 to the exit for the state forest road to the Oyster Dome trailhead. It’s a beautiful day for our hike. We take it slowly as we continue to test O’s knee. He’s been doing his home physical therapy exercises religiously. There’s about a thousand feet of elevation gain over the 2 ½ miles to the Dome, but it’s not too strenuous. The Washington Trails Association has done a great job grading the trail.
This is a popular hike and there are many people on the dome, but it’s generally a happy and quiet bunch. The view is a bit hazy due to mist off the ocean, but still beautiful. O and I make our way back through the trees to catch a glimpse of the Cascades to the east. We then proceed downhill to Vincent and drive toward Bellingham once more.
This time we visit Twin Sisters Brewing. I try an ESB and O sips a stout. Once again the beer is excellent. There’s no dessert available at Twin Sisters tonight so, after purchasing some beer to sip at home, we drive to Pure Bliss Desserts. Here we settle on two slices of what turns out to be a blissfully chocolaty Belgian torte, a perfect end to the day. We return to Larrabee where we enjoy our dessert in camp as the sun sinks lower in the northwest.
Tomorrow morning we plan to return to the Birch Door to try some other breakfast delights before driving home.