Open House Road Trip

On Saturday we set out to the Northern end of Whidbey Island with Fort Ebey State Park our destination. We had to be out of our house from 1 until 4pm so a drive was a good option for us.

Set on the western side of Whidbey Island, Fort Ebey was constructed as a coastal defense fort during the Second World War.

The bluff trail overlooks Admiralty Inlet and offers peek-a-boo views of Point Wilson Lighthouse across the bay. Douglas-fir and hemlock provide shade along forested trails sprinkled with pink big-leaf rhododendrons in season.

We took a short loop that took us to Lake Pondilla and were rewarded with a viewing of this bird. Is it a Golden Eagle, a young eagle, or some kind of hawk?

Next time we visit we’ll take the Bluff trail to the Gun Battery.

From Fort Ebey we drove the 5 miles to Coupeville and Penn Cove which are set on the Eastern coast of Whidbey Island. We enjoyed some Penn Cove Mussels and these views.

Our Discover Pass expires the end of the month so we’ll have to take advantage of visiting some more Washington State Parks.

Summer officially begins this Thursday. Do you have any special summer plans?

Good Fences

This fence is in the town of Coupeville on Whidbey Island. Coupeville is on the shores of Penn Cove. We enjoy the Penn Cove Mussels in this little island town in Washington State. Truth be told it’s the sauce that makes a mussel dish good in my opinion. We’ve enjoyed eating at Front Street Grill in this little town and they serve mussels in a variety of very tasty sauces. One of my favorites is Coconut Green Curry Mussels!

Linking up with TexWisGirl for Good Fences #99!

Soon I hope to take a drive on this island again. We’re having a “sisters” weekend early March and my head is spinning with fun things we can do together. Two sisters in Washington state and the other two sisters in Southern California. We are meeting up in the northwest. I never tried mussels or oysters or much fish to speak of until we moved to the Seattle area. Fish was not something my mother was too familiar with in the kitchen. We also ate kosher growing up so shell fish was taboo.

Hope you have a good Thursday!

Signs from Whidbey Island

Washington State has a few islands to enjoy. One of our favorites is Whidbey Island. The Bible camp our kids have attended and served as directors at is on Whidbey Island. When we have out of state company we try to include a trip to Whidbey Island. Our favorite town on the island is Langley. The Star store and the Saratoga Inn is in the little town of Langley. We stayed at the Saratoga Inn when we were attending a wedding on Whidbey.

We ate at Gerry’s kitchen in Freeland and had a great breakfast and I’m sad to say that they are now closed. There are a nice little collection of antique shops in this town.

Another town we like to walk through and eat their great Penn Cove Mussels is Coupeville. This visitor information center is in Coupeville. The town’s Main shopping street, Front Street, borders Penn Cove.

I had to include a nice bowl of mussels. We had these at Front Street Grill, Coconut Green Curry Mussels…delicious.

And here’s a photo of Penn Cove from Front Street.

I’m linking up with Lesley’s Signs Signs weekly meme.

Coupeville and Langley

When traveling on Whidbey Island we like to stop in Coupeville for Penn Cove mussels, Freeland for antique shopping, and our favorite town on the Island, Langley, for shops and a nice stroll.

On our trip last week after exploring Deception Pass we headed south to the Island County seat of Coupeville. My plan was to have lunch at Front Street Grill and introduce Lenny and Debbee to Mussels. Coupeville sits on Penn Cove which is known for their mussels. I forgot to take a photo of those mussels. Both Lenny and Debbee didn’t think they liked mussels but after they tried them they became fans.

Front Street Grill offers a whole page of mussels in different sauces that are delicious. This photo is from our trip to Coupeville with my cousin and we had the Coconut Green Curry Mussels. This time around we chose the Rockefeller sauce because someone in the group detests coconut! How can you go wrong with a sauce described like this “Spinach, bacon, Pernod, shallots, garlic and cream. The great thing is that all the sauces for the mussels were Gluten Free.

Debbee and Lenny with Penn Cove in the background.

I thought this was a creative name for this stand located at the end of Front Street.

We headed south again to our final destination on the island, the little town of Langley. We stopped at this garden store hoping some flowers would be blooming on these great trellises. The greenery was nice but we had missed the blooms.

Langley

Langley sits above Saratoga Pass.

My brother in law, Steve, sits on bench.

We got a refreshment here and then headed to the Cinton Ferry Dock.

I think this was Lenny’s first ferry ride.

It was a still glassy day on the Sound. Another great tour behind us we headed off the ferry to meet Josh, Laura, and Dear for dinner on the mainland. After dinner we said our goodbyes to Debbee and Lenny since they’d be headed back to Southern California the following morning.

We had a busy weekend around here and Dear didn’t get as much done as he had hoped to on the bathroom. You know how it goes with projects in old houses you end up finding things that need to be re-done when you open up walls and take a good look at old pipes. I have a couple days off before I put my tour guide hat back on and I’ll be sharing later in the week about the largest tour group I’ve been responsible for to date.

What’s on the list for your first full week of summer?

Grub and Goodies from the Island ~

We ate dinner at the Front Street Grill on Penn Cove in Coupeville. We had Penn Cove mussels and Coconut prawns with very yummy sauces to start off our meal. Dinner was really good and we had a nice chat with the Chef since we ate early and there weren’t a lot of customers.

The next morning we had our breakfast at the B & B and enjoyed the company of a younger couple who were staying at the Inn.

We found a few fun treasures to bring home. The hanging candle holder is from a thrift store on the main highway. It was $1.75 and I saw it at a nice gift shop for $16.95. I found the Christmas dinner plates at a shop in Langley. I paid $25.00 for 10 of them. The 4 red heavy glasses were $12.00 at an antique mall in Freeland.

So after a trip to good ole Fred Meyer today I’m pretty sure I am all done with my Christmas shopping. I was happy to find out that Fred Meyer is giving a 10% discount to 55 and older customers on Tuesdays up through December!

Hope you are all doing well while counting down the days to Christmas…

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage

Tag Archives: Front Street Grill