Lummi Island, Willows Inn, and a Crazy Ferry Ride

Laura Domela — Sun, 06 Dec 2015 18:51:06 +0000

On Thursday afternoon we left Anacortes and headed for Lummi Island for Kevin's birthday dinner at The Willows Inn. We did not take the boat since the weather was marginal and the mooring buoys out front are not really a very well-protected anchorage. We drove the truck the hour and a half or so from Anacortes to Bellingham, and then took the Lummi Island ferry across to the island.

This is the ferry:

This video below will give you an idea of what I mean by the term "marginal" when referring to boating conditions:

The ferry didn't seem to have any issues with it, but it was definitely a woolly ride. A little bit fun, a little bit scary (but not really). Glad it was a short one though! (You'll hear me gasp early on in the video.)

Arriving at The Willows:

We were SO looking forward to dinner again here. I thought the last time we'd been was July 2014, but I was wrong. I brought Kevin here for his birthday last December. We just didn't do a whole post about it filled with food photos because it was so dark. But that time in July? That one has a lot of photos.

Anyway, they've changed the check-in area and process. You now check in where the little breakfast cafe used to be (a far better use of this space, if you ask me).

We'd reserved the Sucia room, but they wanted to upgrade us to the Haven room if we liked, so we did. Sweet! It was a gorgeous room with a giant bathtub and a beautiful steam shower, and a water view over the top of the Inn:

We hung out in the room for a bit and then got ready and headed down for dinner, which was spectacular. These photos are all candle lit, taken with my iPhone (mostly just so I could remember each dish), but I'll share a few of them here even though they aren't that great. The food was WAY better than these photos, just so you know.

We got to revisit some of our favorites from the past few times we've been here, along with quite a few completely new dishes.

These are savory black cod donuts:

Pickled oysters:

Rose hip jam:

Roasted delicata squash with black truffle underneath and shaved white truffles on top:

And this one surprised me and was one of my favorites of the night — fresh red sea urchin with rutabaga puree underneath:

This dish I was really happy to have again: venison tartare with rye crackers and wild greens:

The service here is always spot on. It's nice too, because you have multiple servers over the course of the evening. We chatted quite a bit (and exchanged info) with one of our servers, Rob Mendoza, who happens to know friends of ours here in Portland, and seems to be quite the chef himself.

Breakfast the next morning was also delicious. They started us with a little pumpkin crepe/tiny pancake with something creamy and yummy on top and some tiny leaves that I don't remember what they were (looks like sage), but it was heavenly:

The main breakfast: soft boiled local duck eggs, sauteed swiss chard from the garden, pumpkin and (some herb I don't remember) scones, a delicious amazingly-textured porridge, house-made yogurt, smoked salmon, salumi, cheese, some apple slices, fresh plum nectar juice, and french press coffee. Everything = delicious.

We picked up Blaine Wetzel's cookbook before we left, called Sea & Smoke. There are recipes in there for some of my favorite things! How fun!

The ferry ride back to the mainland was FAR calmer than the previous day. Whew!

Bellingham to Lummi Island

Laura Domela — Fri, 11 Jul 2014 18:34:05 +0000

We left our placeholder RV Park in Bellingham (aptly named Bellingham RV Park, nothing special at all to speak of here…full hookups, Wi-Fi, narrow spots, no scenery, near the airport…you get the idea) and rode our bikes over through the Lummi Nation reservation and down to the ferry terminal.

Totem pole art:

Look at all those crab traps!

A month or so ago, we made a reservation for dinner and a room at the Willows Inn on Lummi Island for the night and decided to bike it from Bellingham with our overnight stuff in the panniers, and we hopped on the Whatcom Chief ferry over to Lummi Island. Turns out the ferry had been down the day before for 26 hours due to an engine emergency something-or-other, so the traffic lineup to get to and from Lummi yesterday was more than usual.

There were a couple of ferry management types there at the entrance having a very funny conversation:

Her: Motorcycles get on before cars, which sometimes really bugs the cars. Bikes get on last, because they can put them in anywhere.
Him: What if there are 37 motorcycles?
Her: They still get on first and how ever many cars can fit after them…that's how many cars get on.
Him: What if the motorcycles take up the whole ferry?
Her: Same rules. If the entire Hell's Angeles showed up, they'd all get on and they could fill up the whole boat and no cars would get on. (Looking over at us) And bicycles still get on last. The boss makes the rules.
Him: Does the boss ride a motorcycle?
Her: No, he does not.

They were hilarious.

Bikes on the ferry:

Arriving on Lummi:

Off the ferry we turned right and took the route around the top of the island to get to the Willows Inn on the northwest side. Great ride with nice rolling hills and gorgeous scenery.

Our room at the Willows is rustic but nice and the grounds are beautiful. It's right on the water with lovely views:

Dinner last night was spectacular, and I'll tell you all about it in another post. I think it's our new No. 1.

ferry – Riveted

Lummi Island, Willows Inn, and a Crazy Ferry Ride

Bellingham to Lummi Island