This retirement stuff is okay. No\nschedule, no pesky kids, not much money but plenty to do can be a\ndelightful fate. We have been able to do a lot of reading without\ninterruption, unlimited exploring, have tried many dining options and\nhad to do no productive work. Today I dumped the tanks and put away\nour water and sewer umbilicals. Peggy got carried away cleaning up\nunseen spots inside the trailer. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\tUnfortunately, when we finally made it\nto Blaine, Alaska Wild Fish’s kitchen trailer was not at the\nwaterfront where we had eaten twice in the last 10 days. They had\nclosed up and towed their trailer down to the hubbub in Birch Bay to\nfeed the hordes ambling about in the streets. We were now challenged\nwith finding an alternate trough to eat out of so we parked at the\nmarina and got the smartass phone out to check out the options\navailable. We ended up settling on a place called Bob’s Burgers and\nBrew which is located not far from where we started our excursion\ntoday. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\tBefore leaving Birch Bay, Peggy had me\nstop at Edaleen’s Dairy Store where she purchased some of their\nbutter and some half-and-half for cooking at home. We bought a load\nof corn-on-the-cob from Ken Thompson over by Everson a couple days\nago and intend to make it into corn chowder in the next couple days\nso the half-and-half and butter will come in very handy. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\tAfter a fuel stop (diesel is quite\ncheap in WA compared to CA \u2013 maybe $1.10 per gallon less here) we\ndrove the last few miles to Bob’s and pulled right in. Their burgers\nwere pretty good but their clam chowder was great. They also had a\nwide tap beer selection so we had a couple of Irish Deaths which were\ndark and smooth and tasty. The joint ain’t cheap but the food is\npretty good \u2013 almost worth the $46 it took us to get out of there.\nIt was remarkably good when one considers Bob’s is a chain and we try\nto avoid chain restaurants because their food is normally\nsubstandard. Nominal is the descriptor that comes to mind. \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 … Continue reading