This post is a little late, but April is tough in education. And it’s kind of nice to revisit Spring Break a little later 😎.

The ultimate destination of the Spring Break trip for us was Bellingham, to facilitate transfer of the van to Canada (and a flight home).

We had a fairly leisurely morning on Thursday, getting some exercise, and then breakfast at the Hilton Garden Inn in Lynnwood. As an aside, the rate of usability of the Peloton bikes along the way was not high. One was not yet set up (it appeared to be a home-level instead of a commercial-level bike), one was not able to be plugged in, and one had the wrong pedals. We appreciate Hilton’s efforts to provide Pelotons, but would appreciate even more if there could be some quality control in the installation.

My brother and his family had let us know that they would meet us in Bellingham around 11 a.m., so we headed in that direction. We did not encounter anything that inspired us to stop—other than for fuel. We met up at Whatcom Falls Park, where we went for a lovely hike.

After hiking, we were all famished. We had to make a quick decision about lunch and chose the highly-rated Port Fairhaven Fish-n-Chips located in the Bellingham Cruise Terminal (similar to finding great food in strip malls, I guess?). We were not disappointed. We sampled cod, halibut, shrimp, and clams while looking over Bellingham Bay. It was late for lunch, and a weekday (and too early in the season for cruises and ferries), so we pretty much had the place to ourselves for visiting.

My research had revealed at least four ice cream opportunities in Bellingham, so of course we needed to tackle that list. We drove the short distance to the Fairhaven Historic District and found (paid) parking near Acme Valley Ice Cream. Their “claim to fame” is not adding air to their ice cream, so it has a thick, almost gooey (they call it “full strength”) consistency. That said, it was tasty, and they had interesting seasonal flavors—I went with Root Beer.

We were now very close to the “splurge hotel” that we had selected for our last two nights of Spring Break. Apparently my nephew loves exploring hotel rooms, so we all headed to The Chrysalis Inn and Spa. We spent the next hour enjoying the window seat and transferring some of the boxes we had brought along. We said our goodbyes—always hard even when we know the next visit is not far off.

Maureen and I decided to walk to dinner back in Fairhaven. We chose the low-key Colophon Cafe since we didn’t want a heavy meal after our eating adventures earlier that day. I had to choose from four soups—all of which I would have been happy to eat! I went with split pea soup and a ginger beer while Maureen opted for a simple salad. It was too late to check out anything else in town after dinner, but we enjoyed the walk back to the hotel and the lovely views of the bay.