FOOD & DRINK
Choose Booze
Chuckanut Brewery and Kitchen
Will and Mari Kemper (of Thomas Kemper Root Beer fame) opened a real-beer brewery near downtown Bellingham’s shops and cafes, with a focus on sustainable, European-style brewing. A waterfront pub, live music, and brewery tours fill an afternoon, but the Kölsch, British IPA, and Pilsner behind the bar inspire return trips. 360-752-3377; chuckanutbreweryandkitchen.com
Getting There 90 minutes: north on I-5
Get Crabby
Cama Beach State Park
If you’re hankering for a shellfish dinner, you can catch and cook up to five Dungeness crabs at this onetime fishing resort. While you wait for your crab pots to fill, hike the park’s 15 miles of trails winding among beautiful displays of fall foliage or rent a rowboat from the maritime volunteers at the Center for Wooden Boats (360-387-9361; cwb.org). 360-387-1550; parks.wa.gov/camabeach
Getting There 90 minutes: north on I-5
Brew Your Own
Gallaghers’ Where-U-Brew
When you start from the more than 50 recipes for beer and wine, the brew you mix yourself is likely to have incomparable flavor. To make sure that it’s as tasty as it is unique, seasoned brewers will pitch in and demonstrate the use of the facility’s professional equipment such as the wort chiller or the bottle sterilizer. Two weeks after mixing and boiling, you can return to bottle and take home your creation. 425-776-4209; whereubrew.com
Getting There 25 minutes: north on I-5
Eat Medieval
Bors Hede
Can you handle a menu that uses the words “buttered worts” to describe the sauteed greens? There are fourteenth-century recipes and the added theater of wandering minstrels at Camlann Medieval Village’s living history eatery, but there’s no Monty Python buffoonery. Your buttered worts come with a side of lute music and a straight face. 425-788-8624; camlann.org
Getting There 45 minutes: east on WA 520, Novelty Hill Rd and Fall City Duvall Rd
Satisfy Sweet Teeth
Boehms Candies Factory
Willy Wonka and Lucille Ball both understood the allure of a dessert assembly line; at this one you’ll see hands dipping candies in pools of chocolate. Tour the alpine-style chalet and chapel of founder Julius Boehm, an Austrian athlete-turned-chocolatier, then get a tasting tour of the 1956 factory itself. A two-hour chocolate-making class will give you new appreciation for the factory’s steady output of clusters, cordials, and Mozart-Kugeln. 425-392-6652; boehmscandies.com
Getting There 25 minutes: east on I-90
Published: October 2011
Strictly, BYO lighter.
Any day trip that involves local Dungeness Crab is a day well spent! Especially on Whidbey Island. <3
We went to Flaming Geyser State Park and, upon entering, ask the Ranger if the Geyser was burning. After he stated that it was, we paid the admission fee and entered the park. As stated, the park is very scenic and nice but there was no Flaming Geyser. Upon departing, we questioned the same Ranger and he said that it “must have blown out”. What a waste of time and money!