Still Life with Pumpkins

Half-full:  lunch at the Lynden Dutch Bakery

Another one of those glorious October days.  I had it in mind to ride until my odometer turned one thousand miles.  After forty-seven miles, I'm still nine miles short.

Tomorrow for sure, even if it rains.

I rode to Lynden by way of Hwy. 539, the main state route through Bellingham, also known as Guide-Meridian, which runs to the Lynden-Aldergrove border crossing.

This year the state completed improvements to the highway, adding a divider between the north and south bound lanes, roundabouts at several main intersections, and wide paved bike lanes.  Northwest Avenue or Hannegan Road are still more scenic, and possibly safer routes to the border, but there are interesting sights along "The Guide" and if you're looking for a fast, straight bicycle-express route from Bellingham to Canada it's a good choice.  (I'll post more technical-type photos of the route and roundabouts under another heading.)

 The gateway to Lynden doesn't look very promising - you turn right off Hwy. 539 at the cemetery, go past the Lynden WTA park-and-ride, the Northwest Washington Fairgrounds, and a Dutch-themed strip mall on Front Street.  Then you get to about a half-mile of handsome, wide main street lined by tidy houses with perfect lawns and a canopy of old oak trees.

This is the main downtown street, also known as Van Frontsma Street.  Lynden has a reputation for being a very straight-laced Dutch-Reformed-Church town - businesses are closed on Sundays, and there are blue-laws that ban dancing at places that sell alcohol.  But people are friendly, definitely not humorless, and  many shop-owners or workers speak Dutch as well as English.

A lot of the shops are vacant right now, but the Dutch Bakery and Dutch Mother's Restaurant have been in business for many years.  Both are good for brunch or lunch on a long bike-ride.




The windmill is also a hotel, with a complex of shops, a restaurant, and a theater below.  An indoor pond is home to the Van Koi family.

In spring there's a tulip festival, the Northwest Washington Fair in summer, harvest festivals in the fall, and at Christmas there's a parade featuring Father Christmas and the three Magi.

There's only one bus route to Lynden, the number 26, but sometimes in winter I take the last bus in the evening to get a tour of the Christmas lights on Van Frontsma.

. . . maybe not all that straight-laced.

The petunia baskets are still blooming in Lynden, but they're not as big as Ferndale's.