Hooray for the Red, White and Blue
We started the last day of our holiday in Coupeville. Coupeville is located on Penn Cove, Whidbey Island.
It is the second oldest town in Washington state and it has over 100 buildings on the National Historic Register. We arrived in town just before 9am and all of the shops, restaurants and cafes were closed for the July 4th holiday - except for the Knead & Feed - a bakery/cafe specializing in home made bread, sticky buns, bear claws and cinnamon buns.
Since we only had fruit and yogurt for breakfast we thought that we would celebrate the holiday with a traditional American breakfast - a pastry. These buns looked much better than they tasted. They are slathered in icing (and there is nothing without icing in the display case) and much too sweet for us. I cut my bun in half to remove the iced topping, but it has been drizzled on the inside as well. It is easy to see why obesity is on the rise.
We needed a walk after this indulgence. We drove over to Ebey's Landing National Historic Reserve to visit the Isaac Ebey farm house. It is situated on 640 acres which is part of the National Land Reserve. The land is currently leased to farmers who continue to farm the land. The lands cannot be sold and the buildings must be maintained by the leasees.
Our holiday was almost over, but we had time for one more stop before heading for the ferry which would bring us home to Vancouver Island. On to Anacortes where we were treated to another American favourite, the 4th of July parade.
Cheerleaders, fire trucks and politicans throwing candy to babies. The only thing missing was the marching band (but we had seen that in Portland).
We set off for the ferry and had a very leisurely picnic while waiting for the ferry to arrive. It was a nice way to end a busy 5 days on the road.
This is the picnic I would like to have had at the ferry terminal.
What we did have were very tasty turkey sandwiches from Safeway.
After yesterday's long day of driving, it was a nice change of pace to relax and read our books while waiting for the ferry to arrive and on the 2 hour passage home.
It was great to have the time away, but it is even better to be back home.
Welcome home, Debby and Ed. We are glad the trip was a success. Nothing like your old bed, though!
ReplyDeleteIt amazing how much you can pack into a short trip. Good holiday and welcome home. Get together soon?
ReplyDeleteThanks Debby -- great blog! I can hear your voice when I'm reading it. Also you've given some good tips for traveling along there. Both of us would like to do a coast highway road trip, which we haven't done together. So we'd be sharing our memories about past trips -- from some time ago. Stuart used to long haul in the US and they didn't use the coast highway. To beat the heat, we like to road trip in May (in this hemisphere) - it's also better for less bugs and others on the road. For a trip down the coast though, it may be better to go earlier -- like mid-April -- one would have to avoid Easter time and keep in mind that it can flood in southern Oregon/northern California anytime during spring -- sometimes shutting down the highway. Namaste, Heather
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