This retirement stuff is okay. No schedule, no pesky kids, not much money but plenty to do can be a delightful fate. We have been able to do a lot of reading without interruption, unlimited exploring, have tried many dining options and had to do no productive work. Today I dumped the tanks and put away our water and sewer umbilicals. Peggy got carried away cleaning up unseen spots inside the trailer.

We didn’t want to travel with any more waste water in the tanks than necessary so we convinced ourselves to treat ourselves to dinner out and avoid having to do the dishes. We intended to go to Alaska Wild Fish in Blaine but we had some time to waste before dinner so we cruised into Birch Bay to scope out what we expected to be nothing but nice views. As soon as we arrived, we found that the downtown area was embroiled in a big celebration (of the Seahawks football team?) with chain saw carvers, tchotchke vendors and many pedestrians walking in the street because Birch Bay sidewalks are scarce. There may have been food trailers but we couldn’t see them from the main (only) drag. We passed both ways through the wandering crowds and decided to head for Blaine to eat. It was a wonderful drive along the coast from Birch Bay to Blaine with many gorgeous views out to sea from the road under the trees.

Unfortunately, when we finally made it to Blaine, Alaska Wild Fish’s kitchen trailer was not at the waterfront where we had eaten twice in the last 10 days. They had closed up and towed their trailer down to the hubbub in Birch Bay to feed the hordes ambling about in the streets. We were now challenged with finding an alternate trough to eat out of so we parked at the marina and got the smartass phone out to check out the options available. We ended up settling on a place called Bob’s Burgers and Brew which is located not far from where we started our excursion today.

Before leaving Birch Bay, Peggy had me stop at Edaleen’s Dairy Store where she purchased some of their butter and some half-and-half for cooking at home. We bought a load of corn-on-the-cob from Ken Thompson over by Everson a couple days ago and intend to make it into corn chowder in the next couple days so the half-and-half and butter will come in very handy.

After a fuel stop (diesel is quite cheap in WA compared to CA – maybe $1.10 per gallon less here) we drove the last few miles to Bob’s and pulled right in. Their burgers were pretty good but their clam chowder was great. They also had a wide tap beer selection so we had a couple of Irish Deaths which were dark and smooth and tasty. The joint ain’t cheap but the food is pretty good – almost worth the $46 it took us to get out of there. It was remarkably good when one considers Bob’s is a chain and we try to avoid chain restaurants because their food is normally substandard. Nominal is the descriptor that comes to mind.