It is a beautiful morning and I am sitting with coffee writing yesterday’s log while David packs up the bike. He is so wonderful!
Yesterday, we woke up again in Twanoh State Park to the ever-present squawks of crows battling for dinner crumbs. Then it was off to Gerbing to see about my riding suit. The seamstress (I wish we knew her name) was amazing. She had been out the entire week before recovering from an accident. She returned to a Monday morning of a week’s worth of work piled up only to have David and I arrive and request some one-day alterations. Needless to say we weren’t optimistic that anything would be done. We were amazed to find that everything had been taken care of. The kneepads are much better placed and the arms are now my arm length! I feel much more comfortable riding now… especially the way David takes those corners!
From Gerbing it was a scenic hour’s ride to Bremerton where we ran some errands (finally got to Auto Club for maps!) and caught the ferry to Seattle. The ferry thing works great on a bike. We get to cut right to the front and are the first on and off. The ferry ride was a relaxing hour with incredible views of expansive tree covered hills leaving Bremerton to a clear view to Mt. Rainer and the Seattle skyline.
We wanted to do the tourist thing in Seattle, but weren’t quite sure where to start. The biggest issue was where to leave the bike! We located a garage, parked, tried to make the bike look as locked as possible, and hoped for the best.
Seattle strategically places the monorail to the Space Needle inside a huge mall. The monorail was like a Disneyland ride straight through the skyscrapers of downtown. The observation deck of the Space Needle was amazing, once I survived the glass elevator ride up! We had incredible views in every direction… oh, did I mention we forgot the camera (sorry Mom). There was a guy at the top giving fabulous historic trivia of Seattle. I was mesmerized and David waited ever so patiently! They kept talking about the incredible views and clear skies, and may I just say that we have heard rumors of Washington being cold, foggy, and even rainy, yet we have experienced nothing but beautiful, HOT and sunny! Being exactly the Seattle I imagined, from the Space Needle we could see the set up for the Pearl Jam concert. If only we had more time. At the bottom of the Space Needle there was a large carnival, the kind that looks like they set it up in an hour. We saw a log ride with the possibility of getting wet and cooled off. We bought tickets and went for it. The ride was up, down, splash, up, down, splash. The second down part was much bigger than it looked from the ground and I screamed in David’s ear!
We had a nice walk back from the mall through downtown and I looked endlessly for a Starbucks. They are on every corner in San Francisco, and despite my aversion for them there, I really wanted to drink Starbucks coffee in Seattle. Oh well. After a brief check on the bike, we headed for the other attraction we were told we could not miss, Pike Street Market. It is the home of a farmer’s market famous for fish booths where workers through fish great distances to each other. We did see fish fly and even a tourist having to duck out of the way. There were great crafts and flowers that I surely would have bought, if only we had room. And wouldn’t you know it, there in the market we found Starbucks, not just any Starbucks but the first Starbucks ever! We enjoyed an iced mocha, since it was so hot. We decided to truly get a feel for Seattle we would leave right at rush hour :-) David found great streets off the beaten path that gave us a wonderful tour of the whole city.
From Seattle, rather than taking Hwy 5, we took Hwy 99 that was more road than highway, like El Camino or Ventura Blvd. And it was in fact, just like El Camino or Ventura Blvd. or any suburbia, there was nothing very Washington about it. It took us all the way to the coast to where we thought there was a campground, but ended up being just a day use area. It was also a ferry stop for a ferry to Whidbey Island. There was a huge line, but being on a bike we cut right to the front. A really nice local biker with us told us about the island and campgrounds on the 15-minute ferry ride over. An hour’s ride through farms and resort beach homes we found South Whidbey campground. Again with plenty of sites, we picked out the best one, #21. We cooked chili for dinner and David made a great fire so we roasted marshmallows. I was exhausted and fell asleep while David was still playing with the fire. It was a great day.
janet.
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