Raspberry Festival

Location, Lynden, WA

This weekend is the Raspberry Festival in Lynden. Mark was working a bicycle race in Anacortes so the rest of our group walked to the Community Center about 10 AM for a pancake breakfast. For $4 we each got 2 pancakes, sausage, eggs, coffee, juice, and raspberries. What a deal! After breakfast we walked downtown where the dunk tank was already in operation and the 3-on-3 basketball tournament was in full swing. The early morning tournaments were comprised of young boys and girls who played some really fine basketball. The older kids and adults took over later. This is a really big event here.

The main street of town was blocked off for basketball, food booths, craft fair and merchant displays. There also was a block long old car show with lots of very nice cars many of them from British Columbia.

Of course, the real reason for the festival is raspberries so for $1 you can buy a nice bowl of ice cream topped with raspberries. So..… good!!

We all walked back to Candi’s house and crashed for the afternoon. About 5 PM we started getting our wits together for dinner out in White Rock, BC. Thomas’s company had bought a chain of restaurants in Canada and we wanted to try one for dinner. We decided to only take one vehicle so used my truck which holds 6. Our wait at the border was a little longer than last time but still was not bad. We arrived in White rock a little early so we walked along the sea front and people watched. White Rock is a really cosmopolitan neighborhood with all nationalities represented. The restaurants here do a booming business.

Our reservations were for 7:30 PM and we were seated about then. The meal was exquisite! We started with drinks, which was white wine for the drinkers in the group, appetizers of oysters on the half shell, artichoke-salmon dip on pita bread, and batter fried calamari. The sauces which accompanied each dish were unbelievable.

We each ordered a different seafood main dish. I ordered pan seared peppered rare Ahi tuna on a bed of rice with Shitake mushrooms and asparagus spears. It was to die for. Perfectly cooked. Clyda had 3 mustard salmon. Thomas had paella while Debbie had Halibut fish and chips, Mark had the seafood sampler and Candi had lobster ravioli with shrimp. Everyone raved about the food.

For dessert we had a sampler plate of cheesecake, key lime pie, tiramisu, and a chocolate marble cake (it was actually more exotic than just a marble cake).

We spent a total of 3 hours at dinner. What a great experience!!! Thanks Thomas.

We returned to the US via the Peace Arch crossing at Blaine, WA. Our wait time again was not long.

I will need to put photos in this entry later as we forgot to download them from Debbie’s camera.