La Conner in Red and Yellow

Since getting our NEXUS cards last year, Lorne and I hop over the US border (about 45 mins drive from home) quite frequently - and with a much, much shorter wait at the border - mainly to stock up on cheaper groceries courtesy of Trader Joe's, but also to visit the quaint little towns of Fairhaven or La Conner. Fairhaven is perhaps my favourite of the two, not least because we always enjoy a delicious italian meal at Mambo Italiano Cafe, but there are lovely locally-owned shops and pubs there too, whereas La Conner is very cute but perhaps a little quieter and geared towards a slightly older crowd.

The area around La Conner is particularly pretty at this time of year, well known for its vibrant fields of daffodils and tulips, and for once we've actually hopped over the border for both.

A few weeks ago the daffodils were out in full bloom, fields of striking sun-shiney-yellow that brighten even the greyest of days. And this past weekend we finally got brighter weather to make it worth the drive down there again, this time to catch the tulip festival - albeit most of the tulips had already been pulled up, probably because the risk of heavy April showers threatened to demolish what was left of them.

So, while we didn't quite capture the multi-coloured array of tulip fields for which La Conner is famous this time of year, we nevertheless found a large field full of the most incredibly striking, vivid-red tulips I've ever seen in my life. Their colour was so rich and intense it almost hurt your eyes just to look at them. Even my camera (and its operator...) had trouble figuring out the perfect combination of exposure, colour balance and ISO to make the most of the blindingly vibrant spray of red and green.

In fact even the daffodils were a challenge; partly because of the slightly cloudier weather that day, but also because of the intensity of their bright, glowing (almost neon) yellow.

Nevertheless I took a few photographs to try and do them justice - personally I prefer the tulip pictures, perhaps because the light and my camera settings gave a greenish hue to the daffodil shots. But hey, I'll leave it up to you to decide:

Heyyyy, whose that handsome fella in my shot?

And then (fast-forward a few weeks) there were tulips....

Tulips as far as the eye can see

Heyyy there's that bloke again.
Funny how he always follows me around :-)

This is perhaps my favourite. I also uploaded it to Flickr
and have had positive feedback.

She looks familiar - even with the wind-scragged hair.

Thought I'd go for a dutch angle on this one. Get it?
Tulips...dutch.....dutch angle? Sorry, couldn't resist.

Okay, I'll skip the terrible pun on this one.
I love that the colours and the flowers' slight movement
in the breeze give this image a painted look.

And, last but not least, a new profile image - including wild 'n' whispy hairdo, courtesy of the strong breeze.

Weekend in the fair haven of Fairhaven

I'm currently working on a post about Valentine's Day, somewhat belated I know. And, while I'm not keen on buying into what is seriously over-commercialized pressure to get all publicly lovey-dovey - albeit a great excuse to stuff one's face with chocolate - Lorne and I did actually make a little weekend trip south of the border recently, purely coincidental timing. Okay, okay....let's call it what it really was, a little post-Valentine's getaway..... ;-)  Bless!

Anyway, now that we both have our NEXUS cards (which allows us to take the fast-lane through border patrol) hopping over the US border is a breeeeeeeeze. In fact this time was our all-time land-speed record, through in about 2mins without even a passport check!

The weather was quite sunny - too nice to head indoors to the shopping mall - so we decided to head off for a bit of a drive along the very scenic (and aptly-named) Chuckanut Drive.

We were going to continue towards Anacortes Island and take some photos but the clouds soon rolled in, turning everything very dark (as it's been for the past several months!) then came the rain....and wind...so we decided to head back to our main destination, and our hotel, in Fairhaven.

Founded in the 1880's, Fairhaven is a small and cute historical town located in Washington State and is now part of the City of Bellingham. It lies just to the south side of Bellingham, bordering Bellingham Bay and looking out toward the San Juan Islands. I especially love the town's old brick buildings (well, old by North American standards anyway). Unlike Vancouver, all newly constructed buildings in Fairhaven are required to conform in outward appearance to the community's traditional 19th century style, rather than stick out like a sore thumb and have zero character. They've stayed wonderfully true to the heart of this small, quaint little town and the atmosphere is almost european; courtyards, coffee-shops, local artisans, galleries, family restaurants and quaint specialty shops.



Mambo Italiano Cafe - our favourite place for
scrumptious food and great service!

We've visited Fairhaven a few times, though mostly just to potter about for an hour or so, usually around lunchtime during one of our cross-border shopping trips, when we 'always always' end up stuffing our faces with another delicious meal at our favourite restaurant, Mambo Italiano Cafe (pictured).

The last time we visited (Nov. last year) we decided we should make a weekend of it sometime and book an overnight stay at the well-regarded Fairhaven Village Inn, so that's just what we did.

While the Inn looks somewhat generic from the outside, it's actually lovely inside and has the feel of being much older than it really is. In keeping with the town's general age/theme, they've integrated wonderful 19th century features everywhere (like the lobby fireplace shown below) and I have to say, our room was lovely! Nice and spacious with a massive king-sized and super-comfy bed and overlooking the village green.

The 22-room Fairhaven Village Inn - perfect little getaway!

Heritage-looking lobby and beautiful brick fireplace

Large room, big comfy bed and no cats :-)



Of course, even with all that extra bed space, I still found myself perched right on the edge when I woke up, force of habit from having all three cats piling onto our bed at home. And since Mishka has taken to waking up Lorne between 3 and 5 times every night for snacks, it was a night off for him. (It's not so much that she cries/whines but rather repeatedly let's out a "meh!"....."meh!"....."meh!" which gets louder and more frequent, the more agitated she gets wanting her cat crunchies, which we now have to literally keep by the bed at night to shut her up. Bless.

Great beers to be enjoyed at The Archer Ale House.

Before going for dinner at our favourite haunt, Mambo Italiano Cafe, (where my veggie ravioli was out of this world and the wine pours were wonderfully generous) we stopped off at The Archer Ale House for one of a selection of fine beers they have on tap. The bar's actually downstairs from street level (see bottom right of this photo) and it's a friendly, low-key, english-style pub, so I instantly felt at home. :-)

In fact we went back there after dinner, for a nightcap - a really good Manhattan, if only I could remember which rye it was they used. It wasn't Sazerac but it was a specialty rye that we don't get in BC (well, that doesn't say much really, since there's plenty of regular booze that BC's Liquor Board simply won't 'allow' into the province for no real reason other than bloody-minded bureaucracy. Grrrr don't get me started). Anyhow, The Archer - a great little pub for a decent choice of beers & other fine beverages and a friendly 'anything goes' atmosphere.

So we had a lovely evening and a relaxing stay at the hotel. After breakfast the next morning - which was meant to be 'continental' but turned out to offer much more, including a massive waffle & syrup - we went for a quick walk to take a few more photos before heading off to do some shopping at Bellis Fair and stock up on cheap and yummy groceries at good ol' Trader Joe's. (Downside being, it serves as a big reminder of just how much we're gauged on prices for virtually everything back in Vancouver.)



View from our room - The Village Green and it's massive
movie screen for summer evenings in the park.



Apparently the fish & chips here are great - but we'll have
to wait till next time to see if that's true.

Malt vinegar - always a good sign for a fish n'chip restaurant.
'Closed', not such a good sign :-(

I love these old-school store signs/paintings.

Lots of arty and handicraft stores.

Sycamore Square (Mason Block), 1890.

I have to say it really was a great weekend. Very relaxing, too much great food, excellent beers and I have no idea what Lorne and I still find to talk about the whole time, but we always do and I love these little trips together.

It was a pretty successful shopping trip for me too. I mostly wanted to buy new gym gear (so much cheaper in the States) and went to my usual success spot, Kohl's Department Store, where they were having a 40% off sale plus I got an extra 30% off everything after that. Wohooooo, I loves me bargains! And the others at the gym will surely be thankful I finally got new gear. Having kicked up my workouts these past few months, some of my gym stuff wasn't smelling quite so fresh. (Though still not as bad as the one woman at my gym, who's been wearing the same vest top for years, to the point it's literally rotting away on her back!)

Anyway, it was a perfect little cross-border getaway. I can't wait to do it again soon. We're seriously contemplating selling our camper van this year, more to sell it while it's still on a high rather than because it's falling apart, so our weekend jaunts might be fairly limited. But if our escapes are as simple and relaxing as this one was, then that's definitely a-ok by me.