day 8: lummi island

The next morning began with a plate o' fruit and juice.


And what is this cute little duck dish that I must have?


Creamy baked eggs and cheese on a bed of mashed potatoes and a side of some maple-y bacon.


And this morning unfortunately, it was straight to Friday Harbor to catch the ferry back to Anacortes. Park the car, grab a latte and wait...


Once in Anacortes, we drove to Bellingham to catch another ferry to Lummi Island.


Pulled up to the small ferry terminal at Gooseberry Point, and just as we moved up in the line, the barrier closed in front of the car in front of us. Ah, well, we'll get on the next one. And twenty minutes later...


...we got on the impossibly small ferry, which looked like a little tugboat that could only hold six cars! In reality, it held about 15...and we happened to be one of the first cars in line. Doh! It felt like we were driving our car on the water.


Lummi Island is a wooded, rural island, with a population of about 800-something people, and pretty much nothing else here. It's a mix of fancy vacation homes and rundown "hoarders" ones, and most of the island is private property. There's a church, school, library, grocery, post office, espresso place, a few bed and breakfasts and two restaurants on this island. Why were we vacationing on this island?!


Well, one of the main reasons for our trip overall was to eat at the Willows Inn, where Blaine Wetzel is the chef as of last year. Wetzel, 25, worked under the tutelage of the legendary Rene Redzepi of Noma in Copenhagen, who is one of the pioneers of the "new Nordic" style of cooking. (Noma was named the best restaurant in the world by the S. Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants this year.) Willows Inn was supposedly the North American Noma. Done. Then the next think you know....The Times mentioned Willows Inn as one of the 10 Restaurants worth a plane ride; one of the 41 Places to Go in 2011; and Frank Bruni touted its "incomparably fresh food," and used the words "rich," "buttery," "precious"... but he had me at "magical potato extract." Yes! This is for me. I'm drinking the potato Kool-Aid.


As soon as we got off the ferry, the first thing we did was pull into The Beach Store Cafe...


...right across from the ferry dock...


...to have some of these.


Matt had some fried oysters...


...and I had a big heap o' nachos!


After checking in, not much to do but a nice view...


We headed down a path...


...to the beach.


Gorgeousness one way...


...and surprise, the other way, too.


So many islands everywhere!


We took a walk south...


...and encountered this grossness...what looked like a skinned baby seal, with a skull sitting next to it's head...don't know if it's its own skull or what, but I'm leaving.


And I'm just going to lie here and mentally prepare myself for dinner.