Friday, May 22

This marks the third year in a row of an Island Weekend with Gabriel—in 2024 there were five of us; last year there were three (albeit with a fourth joining for a day visit); this year it was down to just Gabriel and me. I keep telling people that if the pattern continues, next year I'll have to go by myself! But, then Gabriel noted that the whole thing started as a celebration of him, as that trip was in lieu of his bachelor party. How are we going to continue celebrating him if he's not there? Fair point, I guess! Although to be fair I can accomplish a lot if I really put my mind to it.

Anyway, each year has been a different island in the Salish Sea. This year I was the one who suggested Lummi Island, just because I went looking for islands I had not yet been to. It turns out, Gabriel had never been here either. He was kind of excited by the tiny ferry we took from the dock at the end of Lummi Peninsula, itself about 13 miles west of Bellingham, and all of 5,000 feet (just under a mile) across the water to the island. The ferry has the look of a small tugboat, is uncovered, and we managed to be the very last car onto a crossing that included maybe 15 vehicles total—we quite conveniently timed it so we loaded right onto the ferry within minutes of arriving, and we otherwise would have waited another half hour.

The crossing takes all of about five minutes in good weather conditions. Also, this ferry boat seems to be the one marketable icon of the island: it's the one thing you see on all the souvenir merchandise you can find in their gift shop.

Seen here, from the ferry, is the south end of the island, with its highest point: Lummi Peak is 1,665 ft (507 m) above sea level.

Lummi Island has a total land area of 9.25 square miles; it's about 9 miles in length and averages a width of 1.5 miles. Curiously, the Lummi Reservation covers the peninsula from which the ferry came, and the adjacent (and uninhabited), much smaller Portage Island to the south of it, but not Lummi Island itself. Lummi Island has a population of 957, giving it a population density of 103 people per square mile. For comparison, the Lummi Reservation covers 19.63 square miles with a population of around 5,000 (around half of whom are actually tribal members) and thus a population density of 255 people per square mile. Nearby Bellingham, Washington has a population of 95,860 and a population density of 3,330 per square mile. The point is, Lummi Island is pretty empty. And beautiful!

As is typical of these island weekend getaways, our only real option for lodging was AirBnB. I found this place, a house with two bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms, and some beautiful views to the east across the water—it's right by the beach. The people who own this place sure have a random sense of interior decorating.

I know it would be better to have a backdrop of something real and natural, but this is easily one of my very favorite shots from the entire weekend. I was stretching out as far as I could to get as much of the mural lettering into frame as possible.

Gabriel and I went to explore the island for a bit after settling our stuff in the house, and we found Sunset Beach, on the west side of the island near its northern end. We walked far enough north that we probably barely went outside the bounds of Sunset Beach, but found this beautiful area of algae covered rocks along the shore.

City dwellers like myself are a bit shocked at the trust among rural communities like this: at Full Bloom Farm Stand, which was a very cool little store at Full Bloom Farm, you just ring yourself up! We were here at 7:55 p.m. Friday, and there was not a single other person around, but all the merchandise was available to take. The thing is, Gabriel honestly thought he was buying cilantro and didn't realize until we got back to the house that he'd taken oregano. He looked up and paid for cilantro at that register, though.

A beautiful night time shot I got of the view of Bellingham across the water from the beach by our AirBnB, which they dubbed "Bula Beach House." The lights of the city are seen here through the water space between Lummi Peninsula and Portage Island. If you look closely you can see Mt. Baker in the distance at the right side of the city lights.

Saturday, May 23

A meditative labyrinth set up near Lummi Island Congregational Church, built 1909 (by a congregation formed by ten islanders in 1893). Gabriel explained that you come up with a question to meditate on, and you're supposed to arrive at an answer by the time you reach the middle. I finished and told him what my meditation question was: "I asked, 'Should I walk this entire labyrinth?'"

My favorite thing we did on Lummi Island! The 1.7-mile hike up Baker Preserve Trail, our destination was a clearing overlooking the west side of the island and many of the San Juan Islands, from about 1,050 feet or 320 meters above sea level. (I had considered actually hiking to Lummi Peak, the highest point on the island at an elevation of 1,665 ft or 507 meters, but that trail is over three miles one way and we had neither the time nor the energy for that; when I learned of Baker Trail and its own overlook point I was overjoyed to do that instead.)

Even Gabriel, who has a lifetime history of hiking all over the place, was a little taken aback by how steep the grade was in the first quarter or so of the Baker Preserve Trail—because it's really unusual for trails to be that steep, apparently. Knowing we had this kind of view waiting for us, though, was very motivating for me. It was very tiring, and also the descent back down was rather hard on the knees, but totally worth all the time and effort. Just look at that view!

Here we have the requisite dual selfie at the most iconic spot we visited on Lummi Island.

I had to include this shot because Gabriel found this stem of flowers along Baker Preserve Trail on our way back down, and he used his plant identifying app to figure out that this was a Spotted Coralroot. I proceeded to take a "portrait mode" photo of it, which I thought turned out great.

I suppose I should explain that Gabriel majored in Wildlife Biology when we were in college, has had multiple educator jobs over the years, and currently works in educational outreach and programming for the Great Peninsula Conservancy. What I'm getting at is that this explains why he's on his hands and knees to sniff a turd on a trail. This was how I learned that if the turd has no odor, then it's from wildlife; if it has an odor, it's from a domestic animal like someone's dog. He saw this had hair in it, further indicating that it was from wildlife since they eat other furry animals.

I didn't get this shot when he first got on the ground to investigate this turd, by the way. I was taking out my camera just as he leaned back away from it. When I complained, he said he'd get down there again for me. To me, this is an instantly classic, on-brand photo of Gabriel.

Back at the Bula Beach House: deck chairs right by the beach, with this stunning view of the Salish Sea and Mt. Baker beyond. This is one of the views they show on the AirBnB page for this house, as you can imagine. I wanted a shot of my own, though. This really was a gorgeous spot to stay. It's just too bad the toilet in the primary bathroom never worked properly—it would flush, and then keep filling until you had to turn off the water valve so it wouldn't flood. Fun!

Gabriel has this need to get out onto the water in a kayak whenever we go on these trips. He usually brings his own, but left it at home this year, opting instead to rent one on Lummi Island. He really wanted me to get in a kayak too, but I had not brought shorts because, even though it was a very nice weekend, it was still not super warm up there; we had highs generally in the mid-sixties. In the end, Gabriel just rented a kayak for himself, and went out on the water while I worked on processing photos I had taken up to that point during the trip.

The guy he rented the kayak from dropped it off for him at a location about a mile from our AirBnB, and then Gabriel paddled down toward the house so I could get some pictures from there.

The kayak place has a bunch of fun puns for its kayaks, by the way. My favorite was "Fleetwood Yak."

This photo was taken, again from the Bula Beach House, at 8:19 p.m., when we suddenly had the clearest view the entire weekend. Here you see Mt. Baker to the left, and more of the Cascade Range to the right of it. The tree-covered island seen closest across the water is the uninhabited Portage Island.

We spent over three hours around a bonfire outside the house Saturday night, just drinking bourbon and shooting the shit. Gabriel was solely responsible for the fire, for the record. It was so lovely and pleasant that the time just flew by. The only downside was when we were sitting rather close, and an ember flew out of the fire and right on top of my shoe. I didn't even notice it at first but Gabriel did, and I probably should have swiped it in another way but stupidly tried to tamp it out with my other foot. The result was a small hole burned right though the fabric of my shoe. At least the ember went out before it reached my sock. I guess I'll just wear those shoes on dry days; that's what I already do anyway as the material is very porous as it is. Or, I could have just used some more embers to turn them into a new pair of sandals. I didn't even think of that!

I guess I'll mention that Gabriel drank his bourbon straight like he always does, one block of ice in it. I mixed mine into a glass of Zevia Cherry Cola, which he thought was ridiculous. "Some of us are adults," he said. Yeah well, some of us are happier doing what we want.

Sunday, May 24

Now we get to one of the most fascinating parts of our Lummi Island visit: the Willows Inn, first opened in 1910 and more recently considered one of the best restaurants in the world, but now closed since November 2022 after the disgraced downfall of fine dining chef Blaine Wetzel. Wetzel was the most recent chef there, having started in 2010, but facing a succession of controversies, most of them indicating he was a heinous, abusive asshole, from 2017 on.

I knew nothing about any of this, but Gabriel knew all about it, and was deeply fascinated by it all. The New York Times published an in-depth article about it all in 2021, and you can read that here. It is perhaps that exposé more than anything that resulted in the restaurant's closure in 2022, and it has been sitting empty, getting overrun with foliage and turning it into something that looks like a set for HBO's The Last of Us, over the past three and a half years.

It was fascinating to walk around the place, this once-hallowed restaurant that the New York Times described in 2011 as one of "10 Restaurants Worth a Plane Ride," and now is abandoned. I looked up Wetzel, and apparently he fled with his wife to Mexico to attempt a new restaurant venture. Curiously, the Willows Inn website is still live, with photos that show you how it looked when it was still operating. It includes a cottage people could rent for staying the night, but now if you click the Reservation button it just takes you to a page that says they are currently closed.

Although the outside was overgrown, I took a few photos through windows, indicating the property was clearly being staged for sale. Gabriel even got a shot of the interior of the cottage, commenting on how it still had a perfectly made bed—which in retrospect makes sense if the property is up for sale. It appears it's been available for at least a year.

The most fun detail of all this, for me, is that The Willows Inn was one of several "destination restaurants" that inspired the 2022 horror-comedy film The Menu, which Gabriel and I watched on our first night on the island for that reason—in the film, a select group of patrons pay through the nose to take a ferry to an island restaurant purportedly using only local island ingredients for their dishes (a claim The Willows Inn made and was later revealed to be fraudulent). I had already seen The Menu twice but was still happy to watch it a third time; it's a really fun movie, and it was fun to watch it while on one of the islands that inspired it.

And that sums it up, this year's annual island weekend getaway. I had a great time.

[posted 8:29pm]

Lummi Island 2026

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