Our Favorite Best Road Stops

If you're driving up from Seattle, and you want to take a more scenic ride than highway 20, the best road is... Best Road! You'll get great views of the Skagit Valley and its scenic farms with Mt. Baker for wallpaper (if the weather cooperates), and you'll pass by some of our favorite valley pull-outs.

Hop off I-5 at the Conway exit (221) and turn left onto the Pioneer Highway. Just past the overpass, take a right onto Fir Island Road and cross the South Fork of the Skagit River. The Conway Muse is on your left. I've never been, but I hear they have good food and good music!

Keep following Fir Island Road when it takes a sharp right about 5 miles in. Heading north now, you'll pass Snow Goose Produce on your left in a couple miles. It gets its namesake from the thousands of snow geese that winter here every year, though you won't see any in August. The snow goose has local organic produce and locally caught seafood in season. They also have enormous ice cream cones!

I also LOVE the Rexville Grocery, just a few miles past the Snowgoose in the tiny town of Rexville. It's an old country gas station that's been converted to a store, and they sell Biodiesel at the pump! They have a great selection of gourmet foods, local brews on tap, and a patio where you can enjoy a bite to eat from their cafe. To get there, go 2 or so miles past the Snowgoose and take the hard left onto Best Road. Pass over the the North Fork of the Skagit River and the Rexville is on your right.

After filling up on cheese and smoked salmon, head toward LaConner on Best Road. It's a quaint little town on the Swinomish Channel with great shops, restaurants, and galleries. Good beer there, too! We've got 2 favorite restaurants there, The LaConner Brewing Company on 1st Street, and Nell Thorn, an tiny little pub with great food tucked away up a hill on Washington Street. Stop off at the Museum of Northwest Art or The Next Chapter Bookstore (also on 1st Street) to feed your mind, too.

If you're not full of noms and beer yet, follow LaConner Whitney Road north to Highway 20, head to Anacortes, hop on the ferry, and join us for more!



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Jane