Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve

Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve has it all (or at least enough to keep you entertained for a day), scenic coastline, a historic small town, hiking trails, and multiple forts.

Centrally located in the middle part of Whidbey Island, it was protected from development as a National Historical Reserve in the late 1970’s and even though it’s only a couple hours north of Seattle, it feels much further away.

We started our day in historic Coupeville, checking out the tiny farmers market and wandering the wharf and Front St.

Although there are two forts that are part of the NHR, Fort Ebey and Fort Casey, we only visited Fort Casey State Park. The fort was built in the late 1800’s to defend the coast, but was never needed. It’s a pretty extensive fort with multiple batteries full of ladders and staircases to crawl around and dark tunnels to explore. It’s right on the coast, with beautiful views over the ocean and beach to walk on if you get tired of fort.

After getting our fill of the fort, we drove over to the Jacob & Sarah Ebey House, which is located along the Ebey’s Prairie Overlook Trail. There wasn’t much to see there, since it was closed, but we peered into the windows and took a look at the historic blockhouse that is located in the cemetery at the beginning of the trail.

If you continue on the trail, it connects to the Bluff trail, which has beautiful views over the ocean and has the option of continuing as a loop trail when it connects to the beach trail.

After our hike, it was late afternoon and we were ready for an early dinner, so we headed back to Coupeville. There are a several restaurants to choose from, many featuring the famous Penn Cove mussels (farmed right off the coast) in various forms. We decided to go with Toby’s, as I was intrigued by the mussel chowder on the menu, which I thought was pretty good, but wasn’t very photogenic.