Day 17

Saturday July 3

We slept in this morning, at least the girls did. They slept until 10:30! Victoria, the owner of the house, gave me some advice on what to see in Seattle. Once the kids got up we had a breakfast of blueberry pancakes, apple-chicken sausage, and yogurt. We were running late so she sped us down the hill to the waterfront where we barely made the noon ferry to downtown.

The place where we are staying is very nice. The house was built in 1928. The furniture and appliances are either original or pretty old fashioned. It’s very basic and functional. I like it a lot. We have the upstairs area comprised of two bedrooms. We share the downstairs bathroom, kitchen and living area. This type of set up is usually not my cup of tea but it’s consistent with how I wanted to travel this time. Victoria has been a great host. As I said yesterday, the neighborhood is fantastic! The house is in West Seattle just across the bay from downtown. The views from here are wonderful. We can see the entire Seattle skyline. The neighborhood itself is very charming. There are tons of interesting little houses, bungalows and whatnot. It’s like a mini seaside resort. There are also a number of bigger million dollar houses that have been built recently. We’re very close to Akli Beach, which is a big local gathering spot featuring a nice beach, walking/biking paths, restaurants and shops.

We spent the entire afternoon in Seattle. What a cool city. The buses within downtown are free and frequent. Every time we saw one, we jumped on. This led to visiting a random series of attractions. We saw: Chinatown/the International District, Pioneer Square, part of downtown, Pike Place, the Smith Tower, the Seattle Art Museum, and the main branch of the Seattle public library. I enjoy this type of scattershot approach. It’s a fun way to see a city. Tomorrow, we’ll go and fill in some of the blanks.

We saw an exhibit on Kurt Cobain at the Seattle Art Museum. It included works by other artists inspired by Kurt. It was interesting and the works really ran the gamut of different types of art.

Despite all this, we seemed to have trouble finding our groove in Seattle. Perhaps we were still a bit tired but things weren’t clicking perfectly. Maybe I need a more coherent plan of attack.

I was a bit disappointed in Pike Place. It just seemed like a mishmash of touristy schlock. However, in fairness, we were starting to drag by then. We’ll give it another shot before we leave, hitting it earlier in the day when we’re not as worn out.

By 5:30, after the second Seattle Duck amphibious tour bus full of screaming addle brained tourists sped by us outside of Pike Place, we decided to retreat home for the night. Instead of taking the water taxi, we took a city bus. This went well until the driver pulled over about a half mile from our stop and announced that he had to go to the bathroom (yes, we were the only ones on the bus by now). He hightailed it out of there and left us sitting. Well he must have had to do number two. Either that or he was going to a toilet in Portland. Either way, he was gone so long that we decided to hoof it home. Is this type of conduct by bus drivers acceptable in Seattle? Isn’t it akin to abandoning ship? Doesn’t the driver owe some type of moral duty to his passengers?

We hung out at our place for a few hours before going out to dinner. We wound up going to the same restaurant as last night and being treated to an equally sweet sunset.