Washington weekend, Post 2: Scottish Highland Games & Clan Gathering

Continuing on from the previous post...

Once we arrived back on the mainland on Saturday afternoon, our first destination was the 65th Anniversary Pacific Northwest Scottish Highland Games & Clan Gathering! This was held in Enumclaw, a small town about an hour south-east of Seattle, WA. We arrived at 4pm, which was quite fortuitous as it was half-price entry from 4pm onwards!

The Highland Games had been the initial motivation for our weekend away, with the rest of our plans springing up around it. We ended up not seeing any of the sporting events though, due to our reluctance to leave Whidbey Island as early as we'd originally planned! However, we heard a lot of great music, thoroughly enjoyed the people watching... and will just have to go to another one sometime to watch the caber toss. :)

I think the photos will speak for themselves in this post, and there are a LOT of them. So here goes!





Small world experience #1: The only pipe band we sat and listened to properly happened to be the six times winner of the Grade One World Pipe Band Championships. They were the Simon Fraser University Pipe Band... from Burnaby, BC.... i.e. the city we live in!!

Some of our colourful fellow festival-goers...




















Festival food...





Small world experience #2: One of the bands performing throughout the day was Blackthorn, a very talented Celtic group we'd never heard of... but they are from Vancouver, BC! Ben went off for a wander and missed their entire performance... so luckily I recorded some of it, because they ended up being my favourite act of the day!

Here's Blackthorn performing Jolly Roving Tar (awesome bass - turn it up!)...

And Mull of Kintyre...

...And click here for Itches In Me Britches!

I'm definitely going to keep an eye on these guys' performance schedule around town!

Small world experience #3: The next band was probably the biggest name to play at the festival... and they were Australian!! Brother was founded by three brothers from Bathurst, NSW, in 1992. Today only one of the original brothers remains in the band, which now performs mostly in the USA. They can be described as a rock band with bagpipes and a didgeridoo thrown in!

The last band we heard was Wicked Tinkers, a "Tribal Celtic" group from California who also use a bit of didgeridoo! They had great stage energy and are definitely a festival favourite - we spotted lots of people wearing Wicked Tinkers t-shirts during the day. I didn't choose the most lyric-rich song to video though!

We left once the ceilidh (talent contest) started, and set off for our B&B in Tacoma, half an hour west. It had been a fun afternoon at the Scottish Highland Games & Clan Gathering... and it sure tickled our fancy to think that we'd come from Canada to a Scottish festival in the USA, at which an Australian band headlined while someone belly-danced in front of the stage. Ah, globalisation!

Click here for more photos from our Washington weekend.

PS. Comments welcomed! What did you enjoy in this post?

Washington weekend, Post 1: Whidbey Island

At the end of July we had a long weekend for BC Day, and we spent it south of Seattle in Washington state, USA. As both of us are very busy at work at the moment, we have no big trips planned for this summer... so this is the year of weekends away. I'd been looking forward to this one for weeks!

On Friday night we crossed the border, stopped at Trader Joe's, and then had dinner at our new favourite restaurant in Bellingham: La Fiamma Wood Fire Pizza. This one had prosciutto, caramelized onions, mozzarella... and a salad on top!


Then we continued on to our destination for the night: our friends Kelly and Janae's new home at the south end of Whidbey Island! They're renovating a cute old house in the country, with the aim of subsequently relocating. We're going to love visiting them there! When coming from the north, the island is accessed via a bridge, but the next day we'd depart on a ferry from the south end (landing on the mainland 30 minutes north of Seattle).

We arrived sometime after 10pm, and sat up chatting and munching on Trader Joe's goodies for a while. In the morning, Janae cooked a delicious breakfast... and then the boys got to work on the window project! Meanwhile, Janae and I went into the nearby town of Langley to keep Etta out of the way of the window work. As we were driving out of their driveway, we saw three deer!

Langley was a picturesque little town full of interesting shops and cafes. I think a more in-depth exploration will be in order in the future!



Back at the house, here's the window project underway...





Janae and Etta...


Country charms...







Around 2pm, we set off for the ferry to the mainland. We'd intended to leave mid-morning, but we'd been having too much fun (thanks, K&J, for a great visit!). The ferry took 20 minutes and cost $9... Washington Ferries are a bit kinder to the wallet than BC Ferries!

Views from the ferry...




To be continued...