The Great Mikegration

Cover Photo: Lavender drying at B&B Family Lavender Farms;

Adventure Map Days 13-16;

Day 13: 07/17/22

• Don’t know why but Dad woke up at 2:30am. To much noise outside. Made for a long day. He gets cranky when he doesn’t get much sleep
• First stop of the day was Red Dog Coffee. We both liked ours and was perfect to get the day started.
• Super pumped for our second stop of the day. Sasquatch Bakery Donuts!! Cool looking place and friendly employees however the donuts were terrible to us. Maybe just an off day or something. We saw a lot of people coming in so I don’t know….. Made me very, very sad though. Felt like my hero let me down….
• Suffering from the donut pain we walked around town a bit and I spotted the Bella Italia Restaurant and wondered if was named that because of Bella from Forks. Ughhhh now I’m wanting to see the movies…… Anyway we journeyed just down the street and stopped at Coffee box for breakfast and more coffee- the paninis are good but they peddle woo about CBD curing autism. Not a fan of that type stuff. Great views though from the second floor of their shop.
• Next up a hike at Marymere Falls – really beautiful. Hike was relatively easy and well maintained trail.

• Did and Ancient groves walk but it started raining at the end.
• Onward to Sequim and bonus points. Unbeknown to us they were having their Lavender Festival. Never dreamed I would be impressed by lavender, but I was. We took a couple of tours- Victor’s Lavender and just down the road another one at B&B Family Farms. Sequim is like the lavender capital of the USA. The climate here is perfect for growing lavender as the are has it’s own micro climate. They get about 17 inches of rain a year which is just perfect for growing lavender. In fact 80% of the plants you see on North American farms are grown in Sequim and half a million cuttings with over 150 varieties are grown here from October – April.
• Victor’s Lavender was really cool and since we were hungry we got a sausage and champagne. The sausage was a little to salty for our taste but the champagne was good. Make sure you read the story of Victor’s Farm on the picture as it’s amazing! I only took a couple pictures here so just know that he has fields filled with lavender also.

• B&B Family Lavender Farms had a great tour with a really fun tour guide. Some older lady told Evan to start the revolution but I don’t remember the story. Tour was cool though as showed the drying hangers, the processing equipment to take the leaves off the lavender, and the distillation equipment to make the essential oils and fragrances. Nothing super rocket science here but good old American hard work and know how! Funny story to help remember the difference between American lavender vs French lavender. Americans are more independent so the leaves are further apart unlike the French. Also French lavender has a stronger fragrance that English Lavender; I’ll let you figure out the story about that all on your own.

• Leaving the lavender fields behind or more accurately driving my more of them however not stopping to take the tours we stopped by the Dandelion Botanical Company – great place and strongly suggest you make time to stop. The proprietor is awesome and we had a great conversation. She’s extremely as in EXTREMELY well versed in all the botanicals.  Feels like an old time apothecary shop when you walk in with the jars everywhere. Very neat and clean. Cool place.
• Staring to feel the need for a little walking and cidery fun we went to Finnriver Farm and Cidery in Chimacum, WA and we loved it. They were having an interdependence party and they had lots of their home brewed cider we got to try; great food and wonderful ambiance. People were all super helpful and friendly. Really great place. We had a quick little picnic there while we tried several of their different ciders.

• Continuing our laid back afternoon we drove to Marrowstone Vineyards in Nordland, WA. They are located on a hill on a island so yeah, that’s cool and the view is spectacular so we did our tastings outside. Olivia liked one of their wines and got a bottle for later.
• Olivia was spoiling me today as next up was Eaglemount Wine and Cider in Port Townsend – great cider, mead, and port. Met Tim and Lisa, super nice couple; they were having their sampling a table over from us. They were just giving each other a hard time, laughing and having a great time. Was a great conversation with a couple great people. As a side note on all these tastings since I was driving I didn’t have more than a swallow of each one. Always, always, always safety first!
• Pretty full day today and we both thought it would be good to get to the hotel and check in so we could grab some food. Ended up staying at the Harborside Inn. Nice little hotel/inn right on the harbor. We ended up driving downtown to eat at the Sirens Pub which is a waterfront bar type place. We were not impressed. Food and service were lousy and unless you got there super early limited seats for the view. Wouldn’t eat there again. After the Sirens Pub we headed back to the hotel to get some well deserved rest.

Day 14: 07/18/22

• Interesting smell and sights at the hotel. Woke up to a beautiful day. Decided to stand at the window looking out into the harbor to greet the morning to enjoy the boats bobbing in the water. It was really serene as I watched the people come and go, the boats floating being boats and then one of those interesting things that happen to you just seemed to happen. It’s when you see something and it looks perfectly normal but you just know it’s not…. There was a girl that had evidently slept on her boat that popped out of the hatch and sat down on the side of the boat. How nice I thought…..then she looked around, hopped up, pulled down her PJ’s, speed pee’d in the harbor, pulled those PJ’s back up and disappeared back down the hatch. Kinda like the jack-in-the-box except with a peeing girl. Pretty dang funny actually.. No pictures on this one…..
• Checked out of the hotel and drove to Hot Shots Java in Poulsbo, WA for our morning cup of coffee. Coffee was good (I’d repeat) and the people in the store were really nice and from the way they greeted other customers, both local and tourists, you could tell they had a great attitude and truly cared about their community. Poulsbo is a neat town as the whole town is Norwegian themed so it’s cool just to walk around a bit and enjoy.
• We walked down the block and across the street to Sluys Poulsbo Bakery. We stocked up on some pasties here and then walked about a minute to the harbor (Muriel Iverson Williams Waterfront Park) to enjoy the spoils of our labor. Winners were caramel pecan, and almond pastry. Look at the size of those donuts!!!!

• Drove forever per Olivia (about 3 hours) and stopped at the Thorp Fruit & Antique Mall. Huge place that is 3 stories tall with a fruit stand (huge) on the bottom floor then up the stairs to find the antique shopping. After much diligent searching Evan found a blue jean jacket for her patches! And almost a cauldron but wasn’t the right size for what she wanted. Sadly no pictures here either.
• Drove north through North Thorp and continued north through death defying mountains (lots and lots of twists/turns and everything else you can imagine) towards Peshastin and then into Leavenworth to get to the Bavarian Lodge where we were staying for the night. We really liked the Bavarian Lodge. The check in process was super easy, front desk was great, great atmosphere, room was clean, quiet and nice. Mountains in the background. Just an all around nice place!
• Got the bags in the room and time for some exploring! It was only 3pm so lots of time left. First thing was we just walked around a bit to explore the town. Lot’s here to see in the historical part and we loved it. We managed to hit it right and visit the town in a bit of a dead tourist spell (still busy but not super crowded) so it was easy to get walk around and see what we wanted.
• On our touristy wanderings we stopped at The Gingerbread Factory and bought a couple of light snacks which were good but not outstanding.

• Down the street was the Nutcracker Museum which Evan knows I love nutcrackers so was a great surprise to me. It was super cool and very overwhelming as there was just so many and so many different types. So many different ones that the pictures don’t even begin to do it justice. They had 2 stories of nutcrackers along with history, pedigrees, theme, some very old ones (1650 was the oldest I saw), just WOW… Thank you Evan!!!!!

• Stayed in the museum until it closed and then went to the Italian restaurant Larch which was recommended by front desk guy. We ate in the bar area and it was delicious food and drink. Hats off to a great recommendation from the hotel and great food and service from Larch. Outstanding!!!!
• Walked around some more and then back to the hotel for a late night drink there and a restful nights sleep. If you have never been to Leavenworth you really need to go there. We only stayed the day however I’d recommend 2 or 3 days. In the winter it turns into a giant Christmas Market however the crowds are supposed to be crazy so book in advance if you go then!!

Day 15: 07/19/22

• Got up early after a great nights sleep at the Bavarian Lodge however nothing opens until 9 around town. We did end up having the buffet breakfast at the hotel. We felt it was a very mediocre breakfast and would be ok to skip next time.
• Checked out of the hotel so we could get started on us driving around on the Cascade Loop. Slight detour as we drove to Cashmere to Aplets and Cotlets for a cool candy tour. It was a pretty neat factory. I forget sometimes that factories don’t have to be giant behemoths to make something. Sometimes they can be much smaller. I was impressed with their operation needless to say. Not huge but a good niche and everyone seemed to be happy working there. The Aplets and Cotlets candy was good! Suggest you grab some if you get the opportunity.
• Drove on to downtown Wenatchee and went to the Public Market there. Basically a public market that had a lot of business under the roof. Overall a cool place. We found some gifts and tried some not great mead.

• Thought we found a super cool short cut through the mountains but just got lost down a big road on a scenic drive and found a great campsite (by Box Canyon Viewpoint) that will need bear can for if stay at. We do believe we found the way out of it all but sadly Jaws wasn’t up to the task so we did a three (five??) point turn on the mountain road and headed back out the way we came. The road would have been to rough otherwise and since in the middle of nowhere we didn’t want to take the chance.
• Drove until 2pm and stopped at brewery for Evans Russian lesson
• Decided that the mountains are ugly on right half on this part of the drive
• Drove through Winthrop which is old west themed. Seemed like a really cool town and wished we could have stayed and played however no time on this trip. Sometimes have horses and mules going down the street, etc. It’s a beautiful little town with a stunning scenic backdrop. Next time I’ll plan on spending a day there. Not sure what happened on this but couldn’t find any of the pictures from there.
• Continued onward and drove through northern cascade national park which is BEAUTIFUL! 
• Just past Mazama we stopped and played in the snow for a few minutes as we started up the pass. Managed to get Olivia with a snowball… go dad!!! High, mountain road that is closed part of the year (I think??) and is mandatory tire chains at other times. Make sure you check the roads/weather before you take this route so you don’t get stranded.
• We stopped at the Washington Pass Observation Site which is a scenic overlook halfway through the pass and did a short hike to check out the views. Snow capped mountains! Snow on the ground! Beautiful blue green water! Gorges!!!! Doesn’t get any better than this!! Make sure you click on the pictures so you can see them full sized on this!! The road you see from up high in the third picture is the same road from the first picture. You go up pretty high!

• We had to leave all to soon to continue to the hotel. Ended up spending the night on Whitbey Island  at the Sunrise Inn Villas and Suites in Anacortes, WA. Walked down to Naung Mai Thai Kitchen for some Thai food. Food was good, however very disappointed by the service. Ignored for the most part even though they were very slow and only a couple other tables in the place. Bright side though is we got a great walk in and we found our coffee spot for the next morning!

Day 16: 07/20/22

• Great room that ended up being very quiet so got a good nights rest. I’d need it for the adventures of the day!
• Stopped at Penguin Coffee shop there in Anacortes and met someone from Jasper Texas so it’s a small world after all….lol Oh, the coffee was good here and the staff very nice.
• Arrived at the Sugarloaf Mountain Trailhead about 7:30am and hiked up Mount Erie. Beautiful views everywhere. Thankfully Olivia knew where we were going because I got turned around as it wasn’t signed very well. That girl is a great trail guide! Glad we got there early. When we got finished hiking and got back to the vehicle there wasn’t a parking spot to be found!

• Drove from there to Greenbank Farm on Whidbey Island. It’s a communal farm thing and tried a couple wines. Pie was a disappointment because it didn’t exist. Wines just ok to us. They were friendly and everything was clean.
• Drove on down the road to do a mead tasting at Hierophant Meadery in Freeland (still on the island). Tasting was fun as we got to sit outside to do it and the weather was beautiful. The hostess was really nice and gave great service as well as just a great attitude. She genuinely enjoyed being there and sharing her knowledge! They have quite the variety of mead to taste and Olivia tasted them all lol. She really loved it and ordered a few bottles! In fact they forgot to charge her shipping and when she called back they told her not to worry about it and they shipped them to her for free!!! That’s impressive service!!!!!! Also, they have really cool stools and tables inside and a cute bathroom sign… and yes, I really loved that table!

• Feeling pretty good after our awesome tasting we drove on down to have lunch at Whidbey doughnuts in Langley. They serve much more than just donuts and we had a good couple of sandwiches there while sitting on their patio. Naturally we had some donuts for desert because, well why not!! They were pretty good donuts. We liked the chocolate cake best.
• Moving on down the road next stop was the Spoiled Dog Winery to try their Pinot Noir. Beautiful winery and setting. We tried a flight of their Pinot’s as I really wanted to sample them due to the climate on the island. They were acceptable. I liked the Pinot Noir-McMinnville the best. Definitely worth a stop.

• Drove back in rush hour traffic (no Tesla’s) and got a penguin at Penguin Coffee in Anacortes and an extra cup of java for the road. (We started playing the Tesla game vs the slug bug game just to change things up a little). We didn’t take the ferry across so we just backtracked and then cut down through Mt Vernon so we could see all the town on the way to Index. Very cool drive going through Snohomish, Sulton, Gold Bar, etc. Highly recommend.

• Took a couple hours but we finally got out to Index and checked in to the Bush House Inn for the night. We booked the family room on the top floor so we would have more room. Owner was super nice and her husband runs a guide service in town. They basically restored the entire Inn all by themselves. Really impressive!!!! The town is very, very small and really isn’t anything there so bring your food and be ready to have fun! The views are out of this world and adventure easily found. Do keep in mind that the Inn is super comfy, nice, and clean however it does not have a/c so it can get warm in the summertime but I wouldn’t let that stop you. Also there is a train that runs by the Inn however we never heard it in our room.

• After we got checked in and baggage in the room we decided to take a walk as it was so beautiful. There is a mountain wall behind the Inn that is a popular destination for rock climbing. Olivia and I walked about a mile down to enjoy the view and it was an interesting walk. We saw all the boondockers that were just living in their vehicles by the river. It was so crowded that I don’t think you could have fit another vehicle into the place. It looked pretty unsanitary and since they had signs up everywhere on the trail leading back to the town telling people “NOT TO POOP ON THE TRAIL AND GO TO THE TOILETS IN TOWN” I’d say it probably I’m rethinking boondocking pretty hard; at least in crowded areas.
• Ok, Olivia laughed herself silly and I was just scared shitless by the climbers. It was 7:30pm at night and they were way the way up on the rock wall. Starting to get twilight and man….guess it’s a rock climbers dream but it’s not for me. I stood there and watched for 5 or 10 minutes just saying “@@@@” over and over again until Olivia said “Dad, we need to be headed back to town. You ok to move?” Yeah, I was that freaked out…
• Anyhooooo, we walked back to the Inn (watching our step on the trail) and ate a sandwich for dinner and just enjoyed the view. The room was nice but a little hot because attic but no ac. Fortunately they did have fans so not a big deal; left the windows open and had a good sleep. Make sure and check out the pictures as they are just insanely beautiful!