Anniversary Getaway in LaConner

We celebrated our 19th anniversary (19 married, 21 together, woohoo!) yesterday by heading into LaConner for an overnight at The Heron Inn & Day Spa. The Heron Inn is super cute. It's a bed and breakfast with tons of charm. Photo of the exterior (from their website…it was pouring and blowing a gale when we arrived so we just hustled from the car to the front door):

We had the master suite for the night (and since it was a Sunday in the winter, we actually had the whole place to ourselves). Here is a shot  of the master suite/fireplace (also from the Heron Inn's website): 

The huge jacuzzi tub was so nice (scale is tough in this photo, but there was more than enough room for two in there)!

The nook at the end of our suite (taken while watching that tree outside the window whip around like crazy in the gale winds yesterday):

When I booked the room, I scheduled us each for massages (which were lovely). After some massage and intense relaxation, we headed over to The Oyster & Thistle for dinner. We'd been to Oyster & Thistle for lunch before once when we were in La Conner and it was great (especially the caesar salad!) …. but last night's dinner was top notch. We started with some Shigoku oysters on the half shell with a Vesper cocktail, a salmon and scallop crudo, a caesar salad to share (just as amazing as we'd remembered it). We shared two main courses: a paella with smoked duck, clams, prawns, chorizo, escargot, and saffron, and a cassoulet with duck confit, buttered white beans, house cured bacon, garlic and onion sausage in a roasted duck broth. Delicious, all of it. The service was great, the portions were just right and not too huge, and we loved the intimate ambiance. Highly recommended. 

Heron stained glass back at the Inn, after dinner:

We stopped at the DVD/games library downstairs before heading up to our room, and found a game Kevin used to play with his family when he was little, called Milles Bornes. We played a game last night  – the artwork on the cards is so cute.

We've ordered a copy for the boat (here, from amazon, if you're interested). 

Here's a description of the game, from amazon: Rev the engine eagerly, waiting for the green light to send you hurtling across the countryside. Keep the tank full, find your way around the speed limit and avoid the accidents that will slow you down. Keep the pressure on full and be the first to make it 1,000 miles! Mille Bornes is the classic card game of cross – country racing. Keep a green light handy in case you get stopped and play a tire puncture on your opponent to keep him from getting ahead. Protect yourself with safety cards and save one for the classic Coup Fourre. Play your cards right and you'll be the first to cross the finish line and be the master of the Mille Bornes!

This morning we had breakfast downstairs at 9am…fresh fruit, yogurt, a little chia seed pudding, and then a vegetable scramble with cauliflower, broccoli, eggplant, scallions…and a side of bacon. Delicious. Kind of fun to have the place to ourselves, but we recommend you come to La Conner and stay at the Heron Inn. If we didn't have the "Boat B&B" we'd stay here more often.

After breakfast we drove back over to Anacortes and grabbed some groceries, then took Airship and cruised over to Blind Bay at Shaw Island. The wind had mellowed out a little bit and we were itchin' to be out testing our new gear. Take a look at the new sonar options:

These are all three sonar windows: top left is down view, bottom left is traditional, and right is side view. Side view is a little tricky to wrap your head around at first (well, it was for me). The center line is the bottom of your boat, the black is the water on either side of your boat, and the blue is the bottom on the left and right side of your boat. Here's a bigger, full-screen image of sideview:

It's pretty sweet. Passing the mooring buoys at Blind Island, you could see the concrete block on the bottom, and the chain coming up to the buoy on the surface. I'll try to get a photo of that when we leave. 

We also figured out our fishing pole storage. No, it's not rocket science, but it is hard to carry along everything you want while mostly living aboard a 34 foot boat without looking like the Clampetts (which we will NOT do), so it can be a challenge. Will report on fishing pole storage solution later. :) 

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