Looking for Mt. Baker

La Conner's Rainbow bridge. I've seen photos showing Mt Baker peeking out from under the bridge but I had to be south of the bridge to get that

Lots of public art

nice flowers

cute shops

artichoke gone to flower

quilt museum

I have more butterflies in my own garden

Nice glass shop. Wish I bought something

Steve and his brother at lunch. The hat never comes off as he is very sensitive to sun even inside

Huge berries at farmer's stand with my fingers for scale

Not Mt. Baker but Whitehorse mountain

Pretty heron

Heather, like the stuff all over Scotland. Too hot in Michigan for it.

The mountain is at 6800 feet, not high compared to the volcanic peaks (such as Mt. Baker) but as the nearby ground is near sea level, the mountain looks especially huge.

farm market

local crabs

normal beets but especially huge patty pans. Should have included my chipped nails here for reference

My BIL and his wife relaxing in front of a lavender store. Every town in the NW seems to have a lavender store

One of many gardens the store keepers have

Not my photo but from the Skagit county tulip festival files. The  time to come here is in the spring when the surrounding land is covered with rows of differently colored tulips. To see impressive photos, type in La Conner tulips in image search and you will be amazed

My morning apple crepe and coffee

No running last Monday. My legs were tired from a long run the day before and lots of walking later so we set off for a leisurely breakfast at the crepe place again. We picked up Steve's brother and his wife for the day's adventure north of Seattle to the impossibly cute town La Conner. Why the strange name? It was named after Louisa A. Conner. Maybe it should be LA Conner? The town itself, on the Skagit river which flows to the not very far away Puget Sound is surrounds by mile of flat fields and farm stands. The principal crops seem to be berries and tulips. Alas the tulip fields are now fallow but in the spring, which happens much earlier (than Michigan!)here, the fields are a sight to behold. Holland Michigan has its own tulip fields and festivals but does not have the miles of flat lands as Skagit county does. On my first trip to Europe, we flew over Holland's tulip fields and were amazed.

The town has lots of cute restaurants,shops, and gardens to explore. We stopped at two farm stands outside the town too. We ate at a cafe/bakery professing to have the sweetest buns (which we took to go, I didn't eat mine until I was on the flight home) along the water. Very tasty and pretty.

On to find Mt. Baker which is supposed to be visible from La Conner and even from Coupeville, the town we visited the day before even further away (the inn I had purchased rooms for promised a view of Mt. Baker). You can see from the photos above it wasn't exactly overcast but somehow we couldn't see the mountain.

We (we are using the royal pronoun here) decided to take the North Cascade Highway to get closer but then our view was blocked by trees. We made a loop that turned out to be much larger than I thought it would be (again these states are much bigger than our eastern ones) but  we did get to see other mountains that are arguably just as pretty and have their own glaciers.

We slugged through rush hour traffic to get to Happy Hour on time on the shores of Lake Union so I could finally straighten my cramped legs (backseat of an econocar not roomy and my BIL likes to stretch his legs in front of me) while sipping (read: guzzling) a mojito before visiting Steve's mother one more time. Alas, she keeps herself on a strict schedule which leaves no room for visiting relatives coming during  Jeopardy! She was quite crabby during our photoshoot.

Lake Union

Unhappy mom missing Jeopardy! with kids