The Thanksgiving Holiday was looming. I arranged with my daughter Inga in Portland, Oregon to come up to my place on The Pilchuck via Amtrak Cascades Route for Thanksgiving, she'd stay with me and then we two would drive south to Tumwater, WA where my sister, Sheri, was hosting our Suneson Thanksgiving feast. The Amtrak station is 6 miles from my doorstep and a stress-free 5 hour journey for Inga. She intended to arrive on Wednesday, the night before Thanksgiving, but those train tickets were sold out. Inga booked passage on The Cascades train for Tuesday night instead.
I did my Thanksgiving baking earlier on Tuesday before her arrival so that we would have all of Wednesday to play before we left for Thanksgiving on Thursday morning. We decided to visit the charming and mostly undiscovered town of La Conner, about 35 miles from The Pilchuck and on the channel across from Fidalgo Island. It was the day before Thanksgiving and the place was pleasantly devoid of touring throngs and the skies were only partially prone to precipitation on this day.
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| Inga along the La Conner waterfront with the famous Rainbow Bridge to Fidalgo Island in the background |
Along the way as we strolled into La Conner, we stopped to meet a few new friends; the smiling Xmas Tyrannosaurus Rex, checking his naughty list, and we had the good fortune to meet Zoltar who really does know who is naughty and who is nice - and everything else about you.
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| Xmas T. Rex |
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| Zoltar know who's been naughty and who's been nice this year |
Of course, we always visit Dirty Biter, a storied mutt immortalized in bronze by his restaurant people who took turns feeding him on his local rounds and took him home when he asked.
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| Dirty Biter Statue, a must see every time we visit his old hangouts in La conner |
Some shops and galleries were closed on account of the pending Holiday, but we enjoyed lots of window eye candy and visited several merchants, making purchases of pastries and a few Christmas gifts as well as listening to a local artist tell stories of his cowboy life from New Mexico to Montana by way of Colorado and tales of fellow inebriated, but successful painters.
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| La Conner's rain forest grotto on Main Street |
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| Crafty Ladies love Jenning's Yard Shop |
We had a fine day fiddlin' about in La Conner. It was time to drive across the fallow fields of fir Island, cross the Skagit River and get back to grill some steaks while the rain held off.
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| Fiddler Crab plays us a touring tune in La Conner |
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| Inga does not look crabby in La Conner |
La Conner, a jolly jaunt before our Thanksgiving travels to family and feast.
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