Blaine, Birch Bay, Ferndale, and Lummi Bay

The backstory:

Years ago my friends Jim and John from Angelo's in Loma Linda told me about a little restaurant in Redlands called Kay's Cafe. I never made it to the one in Redlands--I didn't go to Kay's until the owner had moved the restaurant to San Bernardino. At that point, Kay's became a regular breakfast spot. We quickly figured out that the patio at Kay's was the place to be, for a couple of reasons. First, you could smoke on the patio and at the time we had acquaintances and friends who smoked, so they liked that. Secondly, there was no waiting list for the patio. If there was an open table, you could take it without waiting. And last, but certainly not least, the patio had Jamie. Jamie quickly became our favorite server ever. (And at the time, there were a lot of servers to choose from--I went to dinner with my Dad every Monday night. We met a LOT of servers over the years. Some still know us by name. But I digress.)

Kay's eventually changed ownership -- I think in 2005 maybe? The owner picked up and moved to Washington state. (I was both annoyed and jealous.) The first new owner did ok for a while, but then it changed ownership again. That was when we swore off Kay's for good.

A year or so later we ran into a friend of mine from junior high. She saw Leslie wearing a t-shirt from Kay's. The t-shirts were kinda famous. They read: Caution, Does Not Play Well With Others. My friend told us of a new place in Redlands called Carolyn's Cafe. The way the story went was that a bunch of the folks who had originally worked at Kay's made a mass exodus. One of them opened up her own place, and several of the servers went with her.

For those of you who know me well, you know that Carolyn's has been a favorite hangout for the last several years before I left Southern California. I miss my friends, I miss my family, and oh how I miss Carolyn's Cafe. At any rate, since I've moved up here, I've continued the quest to find my Carolyn's of the North, but I also wanted to head up to Big Al's in Blaine because that is where the original owner of Kay's -- Big Al himself -- ended up.

Yesterday was the day.

I had hoped that the day would be sunny. The forecast said it might. Turned out that it was mainly cloudy and overcast, but it didn't stop me. I headed north, up the I-5. I got a little bit of a late start, but got to Big Al's around noon. Here is my FB post from yesterday:

Finally made it up to Big Al's in Blaine today. Sat at the counter and Big Al himself came out for a chat.
We talked about Kay's, Carolyn's and Angelo's -- all the good hangouts (and one used-to-be good hangout) in So Cal. He claimed that he taught Carolyn everything she knows. I don't know about that. I think she does an awful lot of things right at the Cafe, and I'm not sure all of them came from him.
The food was good, as expected. Right up there with Carolyn's.
The service? It was good too.
But there was no Kaycie, Jen, Linda, Chris, Wes, Carolyn, and of course, no Jamie.
But then again I didn't have to put up with Brad either. ;-)

p.s. The free wi-fi was also cool. It enabled my Words With Friends addiction during brunch.

 

 

After a yummy breakfast, I headed West towards the coast. My thought was that I would drive through Blaine and then catch Birch Bay road and stick to the coast as much as I could. I stopped first at Blaine Marine Park. From there you get a great view of the ocean and a pretty good view of the border crossing as well!

 

AAAAAGGGGH!

 

 

Did I mention I got a new car? It's great for exploring. It has heated seats. That may be the best part. I am now a walking, talking, driving stereotpye. It's a Subaru.

 

 

From Blaine I headed down through Birch Bay towards Ferndale. I have no real clue exactly where I went or how I got there. I stopped at a cute little used bookstore along the way and picked up a map of the area since my phone's map app is pathetic and doesn't really keep up. Everything in the store is $1.00. The owner said it makes the tax math really easy. She reports everything as 92 cents and with tax it adds up to one dollar. I happened in on a day where everything in the travel section was free. So my map and the book on Amazon wildlife didn't cost me a thing. I tried to give her $2 anyway. She split the difference with me. What a deal!

 

I continued poking around [sort of] following my map. Mainly I used the map to make sure I didn't get completely lost. I ended up following Lummi Bay road. From there I headed down through Bellingham and finally ended up back on the I-5 heading towards home.

 

I stopped to get pictures of these barns and some guy pulled over and jumped out of his car with his camera and asked "what are you taking pictures of?"

I replied that I liked the barns and he looked at them, and back at me, almost disappointedly.

I guess he thought I'd seen a UFO or something.

I love the haze and the colors and the sky in this one.

There was a large flock of birds circling around in the distance.

I was hoping I could get enough detail to catch them in the shot.

The funny thing was that when I turned and looked back across the street, this is what I saw:

More pics from the day:



Not sure what it is about me and wet rocks but I just can't seem to stop myself from taking pictures of them.

Lummi Bay road.

At one point I turned to head back to the car and 3 dogs started moseying towards me.

They seemed very sweet.

They may have just been old.

They didn't charge or growl or look menacing, but I didn't stick around to learn their names either.

 

Catching Up

I went to download the pictures off of my camera yesterday, and I realized that there were quite a few I'd sort of forgotten about! I also found a few from the day we went to SAM and the Pacific Science Center.

We had some really nice days during November, and the Fall colors were incredible. So I took my camera to work and got some shots from the UW Tower.

This is downtown on our walk to SAM. We parked near the Space Needle, walked to SAM, walked to Pike Place Market for lunch, and then caught a bus most of the way back to the Science Center. I'm pretty sure this popsicle is real. I believe it is cold enough up here to be real.

We visited the butterfly exhibit at the Science Center. It took about 10 minutes for my camera to finally quit fogging up! I felt a little strange stripping most of my clothes off outside the exhibit. Going from 40 to 80 degrees was fascinating. It reminded me of why I left Southern California. ;-)

Somewhere in between I took a trip down south. I took Veteran's Day weekend off instead of flying down Thanksgiving. After checking airline prices for T-giving week I decided it was more financially prudent to make a trip earlier instead. These trees are at the Long Beach airport. I couldn't resist.

Now contrast that with our first snow days up here. That happened in January--most likely you all heard about it on the news; or for those of you up here, well...you experienced it first-hand.

I was already home that week recuperating from that whole pesky gallbladder thing, so I didn't think it was horrible. In fact, Mom was still here for the beginning of it. She flew out just before it got really bad. I was also fortunate because I was not in the part of town that lost power!



That pretty much brings us nearly up to date. Next up: my trip to Blaine.

A Bit of an Absence

For those of you who have continued to faithfully follow my blog, and even for those who have followed less than faithfully, I thought I would give you an update as to why I haven't posted in a while.

Besides the fact that I haven't really been out doing much, well, I haven't been out doing much and there are a few reasons why.

For starters, there were the Holidays. But one holiday in particular created a bit of a stink in my life.

Thanksgiving night I went to the local emergency room. Turns out I have gallstones. Nothing like a Thanksgiving Dinner to bring that sort of thing to one's attention, huh?

Following that, I've tended to lay a little low on the weekends. To be fair, the weather hasn't always cooperated either. Although it has been a really mild winter so far, it is often cloudy and rainy, and not always conducive to photo expeditions.

The Monday following Christmas my friends did drive me down to Cabela's in Lacey, but we saw nothing that caused us to yell "STOP! I WANT A PICTURE!"

Now that I think about it, we did go into downtown Seattle one weekend and visited SAM as well as the Pacific Science Center. I don't think I downloaded those pics yet, but when I do I'll be sure to add them here!

So. I'm getting my angry gallbladder taken out this week. Which means it will probably be a while before I have something more to report on or pictures to share. My guess is that you won't want to see my gallstones--if they give them to me. Or maybe you would... We'll see.