Go! Road Trips 2010

Seattle’s nice, but rolling out of town in the springtime is even sweeter. Here, five excuses to load the trunk, get behind the wheel, and put rubber to asphalt.

By James Ross Gardner, Jessica Voelker, Christopher Werner, David Laskin, and Lia Steakley Dicker

Photo: Will Austin

Ebey’s Landing is the best spot to catch sunsets.

Langley Seafood Feast

by Jessica Voelker

Every few minutes I heard my dad creaking in the back, stretching the leg straight, bending it again. We’d been stuck in my stiff-seated Subaru for an hour—long enough to see two boats leave Mukilteo without us. Long enough to count a dozen spirals of soft-serve ice cream as fellow ferry-waiters paraded by with cones procured at the fish-and-chips stand near the ferry dock.

We resisted. My parents and I were saving ourselves for a late lunch at Prima Bistro in Langley, the Whidbey Island village that overlooks the Saratoga Passage. I’d been to Langley earlier in the summer on an overnight jaunt too short to schedule a tramp through the nearby Saratoga Woods Preserve, but long enough to slide a fork into a most tender slice of Alaskan king salmon at the Inn at Langley. From my room’s private deck, I had watched a melon-sherbet sunset send blips of light dancing onto the black-and-blue waves bubbling up to the rocky beach. That was the Northwest I wanted to show my parents—two New Englanders always keen to lace up a pair of hiking boots.

But then my dad tore his Achilles tendon diving for a tennis ball back in Connecticut. Their Seattle trip was postponed for surgery, then made possible only through the magic of Percocet. We wouldn’t be hiking.

Still, after three days of shuttling them between my three-room apartment and Capitol Hill restaurants whose tiny banquettes proved a poor match for a large man with an injured ankle, I sensed cabin fever. If we couldn’t spot eagles on the beach trails, at least we could suck up some local bivalves on Prima’s rooftop deck.

The sky darkened with clouds as an orange-vested fellow finally herded the Sub onto the ferry, putting the kibosh on the Grey’s Anatomy–esque vision I had of my parents and I leaning out the back of the ferry boat contemplating the sun-dappled Sound. Our boat docked at the Clinton terminal 20 minutes later, and we wheeled the car six miles up pine-lined 525 North.

Photo: Courtesy Ian Jefferds, Penn Cove Shellfish, LLC

Penn Cove mussels are a top food find on Whidbey Island.

Art galleries hawking oil paintings of clipper ships and ladies’ boutiques partial to lacy and rhinestone-studded fun-wear line Langley’s First Street. On Prima Bistro rooftop deck we demolished plates of Penn Cove mussels from just up the road in Coupeville, soaking the accompanying French fries in their salty marinière broth. The sun peeked out just as we finished off the last of the frites, so my parents and I lingered at the table chatting lazily and keeping our eyes on the bluff and the sea beyond, not wanting to miss the moment should an eagle glide by.

After lunch we took advantage of dry skies long enough to amble around the shops along First Street, coveting some handmade Iranian rugs at Islandesign Interiors and refueling with lattes at Mike’s Place. There we once again resisted ice cream, that icy sweet siren of sightseers. We were already making dinner plans.