Month: December 2023

La Conner, Mukilteo, and Ballard – Our Christmas journey continues

On By Terry ChristophersonIn Trips and travel3 Comments

On Tuesday of last week we picked up a rental car and headed north to La Conner, WA. It is a picturesque town at the mouth of the Swinomish River. A perfect place to spend our 36th anniversary.

We have been to La Conner many times over the years so it holds a lot of good memories. Some of the best memories are of when we took my mother there almost every year for her birthday, she loved it there.

We ate lunch at Nell Thorn Waterfont Bistro & Bar since our favorite place, The Oyster Bar on Chuckanut Drive was closed that day. It was a good time for sure. We stayed at the Channel Lodge in a room with overstuffed chairs, a gas fireplace and a view of the channel.

Wednesday we headed south toward Mukilteo, stopping first in Mount Vernon for a nice lunch with my sister and brother-in-law. It was good to get caught up.

Two of our best friends live in Mukilteo, if you follow my blog you have met them already since we joined them in October in Provence. Shirley goes all out on Christmas decorations. We were greeted with this amazing tree, which Tricia, of course, took a photo of. (Her last blog was all about trees, including this one.) They think it has 1200 lights, I can’t even imagine doing that, but it sure is beautiful.

If I had a patron of my art it would be Jim and Shirley, they have so many framed pieces of my art, even postcards that I have sent. Their home has hundreds of wonderful pieces of artwork, some quite interesting. I am not sure I want to know the story behind this one, but am honored to have my art shown in such a creative space.

They invited friends over for a couple of holiday get-togethers, Shirley put out quite a spread. Since they love France there was of course croissant.

Saturday we drove back up north for our postponed anniversary lunch at The Oyster Bar, and it did not disappoint, bien sûr. After a few oysters we shared an entree of smoked sablefish (black cod) on marinated beet with pumpkin seeds. It reminded me that the reason I detested beets for most of my life was not the fault of God creating them, nor of the poor beet itself, it was just poor preparation. This was so good.

I had the plat du jour, petrel sole roasted on a cedar plank.

After our leisurely repast we drove south to Ballard where we are staying with Tricia’s sister. Yesterday we helped out with our nephew’s birthday party at the Lynnwood Swimming pool. Oh my! A room full of eight year old boys sure do have a lot of energy.

Thanks Tricia for the photos

We have had a great time so far. We are so grateful for the folks that have taken us in and put us up. But most of all we have relished the conversations. Tomorrow we are off to San Diego for a couple of days, we have a new, well new to us, grandnephew to meet, should be fun.

Downtown Seattle after two years in France

On By Terry ChristophersonIn Trips and travel4 Comments

We arrived at SeaTac on a direct Delta flight from Charles De Gaul Paris on Friday afternoon, our first time back in the US in almost two years. We stayed downtown for a few days to do a bit of shopping and adjust to jet lag rather than imposing our groggy bodies on friends and family.

The view from the 22nd floor.

Seattle has been changing for a long time, we were aware of that before we left, but our absence of 22 months made the toll that COVID and street people have taken on the city quite dramtic.

My first real impression happened at the airport. After clearing customs, which was quite easy, though slow, I stopped at les toilettes. In CDG airport the facilities are imaculate, at SeaTac it smelled like an outhouse and there were pieces of toilet paper all over, yuck. Not a good first impression.

American showers are a joy, spacious and water that maintains its temperature. This of course is from the perspective of someone who lives in a rural, 230 year old cottage with bad plumbing. Our water is scalding if someone else in the neighboring cottage is using water, it makes for exciting mornings.

In Seattle, at least this part, a lot of restaurants and shops are either closed or gone. Some did not survive COVID, others are victim to the unsafe environment. Many have closed rather than struggle with the rampent shoplifting. We went in a Bartells, which is closing in a week, it was awful. Tricia wanted nail-files, she had to get an employee to unlock a case where they were kept to prevent theft. We needed a gift bag. All of the bags on the rack had the backs cut out so they could not be used for theft, another employee had to go to the stockroom and find us one, it took him close to ten minutes – I almost felt bad for asking. It is a sad state of affairs.

We did get our shopping done. We ended up eating at the same restaurant a few times just because some of our old favorites are gone.

This part of Seattle seems tired. We started to walk to Pike Place Market but with all of the street-people it just did not seem inviting. We did not get to the waterfront which may be more vibrant as it is, or was, a big tourist area.

I hope somehow Seattle recovers, I have so many fond memories of the town.