Heading to LaConner

We got up this morning and headed out to grab breakfast, a few things at West Marine, and then some crab and seafood pâté at Black Rock Seafood in Anacortes. Breakfast was delicious — at Dad's Diner a Go Go. We ordered the highly recommended biscuits and gravy (they make all their own sausage, smoke their own bacon, etc.) with two poached eggs, and the Franco Mexican French Toast (I think that's what it was called) which was super creative and yum: A bacon-wrapped, stuffed jalapeno embedded into a piece of fluffy french toast, topped with a poached egg and a creme fraiche. We couldn't decide which dish we liked best! I'm not a biscuits and gravy lover normally, but holy moly this was good! The gravy was filled with house-smoked bacon and house-smoked sausage and had such great flavor.

Food photos (biscuits and gravy first, french toast second):

After we were fed and erranded and seafood-supplied, we headed for LaConner, via the Swinomish Channel.

A couple ships in the bay:

The wind picked up and it was a bit choppy on our way over to the channel, but not too bad. The Swinomish channel is an 11-mile long salt-water channel that connects Padilla Bay to the north with Skagit Bay to the south, separating Fidalgo Island from the mainland. The Swinomish Channel is the smallest of the three entrances to Puget Sound—the other two are Deception Pass and Admiralty Inlet.

We got a spot in the LaConner marina for the night (after some tricky docking!) We docked on the inside of the dock (not the channel side) thinking it'd be a little calmer tonight, but the wind kept blowing us off as we tried to dock! We decided to come at the dock from the shelter of this big working boat so maybe it'd block some of that crazy wind, and it worked! Here we are:

And here's our route:

The first time I was in LaConner I was on a family vacation (sometime in the late 70s or early 80s) and they had a couple of Renault Le Cars they used as police cars in this cute waterfront town. They looked like this:

They don't have those anymore, but the town is still super cute! We walked around a bit, went in a few shops, and took some photos:

There are public docks you can tie up to if you want to just stop for a few hours and explore.

Shadow self portrait on the main street:

Many of the buildings are on the National Register of Historic Places:

Fun signage:

Waterfront on the channel:

Before heading back to the boat we stopped and had a happy hour appetizer of clams (in a coconut chipotle broth, yum!) and a couple of local beers at La Conner Brewing Co. (a brown and a stout). It was all really good and our bill was $14 bucks. 

It was a gorgeous day and now the wind has died down and the forecast looks pretty great for the next few days. 

Our working boat neighbor, just after sunset: