Steve and I spent 3 days on Whidbey Island visiting our good friend, Karen, who moved there about 6-7 months ago.  She is actually living in Port Townsend right now which is a 20-30 minute ferry ride away but is still looking for a permanent place on Whidbey.  We flew into Seattle and then made the 2 hour drive north, crossing the bridge at Deception Pass onto Whidbey.  We stopped at a Whole Foods along the way to stock up on wine, water and gourmet goodies since we rented a private house.  We rented an AirBNB that was located about 5 minutes from Deception Pass State Park and had an amazing view of the water.  It was the perfect little place – so quiet and peaceful with amazing views.

We thoroughly enjoyed relaxing at the boat house and we even had a little Vermont style electric fireplace in the main cabin.  The property actually had 3 different structures – a main cabin, a small cottage behind it and a boat house right on the water.  It was very roomy and we all had our own private space and shared the boat house area to have wine, grill steaks and admire the view. We also explored the island a bit though there is still so much more we want to see. One of our first stops was Deception Pass State Park where you can walk across the bridge and hike below it.  The water underneath the bridge moves at 5 to 8 knots so it is a strong and fast moving current.  I’m not much for heights so walking across the bridge was a little scary but we made it all the way and back.

We also hiked down to a pebbly beach near the bridge and brought Miss Mabel with us who looked for sticks and rocks.

Another evening we had some of Karen’s friends who live on Whidbey over to our rental house and we grilled steaks, had roasted potatoes with fresh herbs and a delicious salad of bitter greens with a shallot vinaigrette.  They also brought a Whidbey Pie with them made with blackberries, marionberries and raspberries that was amazing with some vanilla ice cream. It was a fun evening meeting new friends and hanging out.

We also visited the town of Coupeville which is located in the middle of Whidbey Island and enjoyed some delicious seafood.  Coupeville is also right on Penn Cove which where they harvest the famous Penn Cove mussels, which are incredible.  I’ll describe the rest of our visit in my next post as this one is getting lengthy!