Hot and Humid Seattle

We were driving through Hoquaim on our way to a coffee shop in Aberdeen when I saw it: a big sign with a giant “Y.”

Is that a YMCA? I asked.

Pull in, Michael said.

And it was! A really nice YMCA too, I might add. $15 got both of us day passes. And the pool was really nice, so after a shower we each swam a few laps.

Cleaned up, our next move was lunch. We were hungry from all that swimming. And we went… to Denny’s in Aberdeen. Yeah, laugh all you want. But our booth at Denny’s had a power outlet. And the restaurant had free WiFi.

Just down the street from Denny’s we found a laundromat. They had free WiFi, too. So now we were clean, our clothes were clean, and all the electronics were charged.

During our stay in town I learned that Aberdeen was Kurt Cobain’s hometown. I think Aberdeen’s probably made some strides since Cobain’s day, but I could totally see why he’d want to get the hell out of Aberdeen.

We ended up camping at (what I’m sure was an illegal) campsite north of Matlock, Washington. There weren’t any signs that said we couldn’t camp there. I’m just pretty sure we weren’t actually on National Forest land. But nobody bothered us. Still, Michael was pretty happy for us to leave the next day, purely because I never got tired of shouting “Maaaaaatlock!” like Grandpa Simpson. Yep, I found a clip on YouTube.

Sunday, August 6^th marked our 12^th wedding anniversary. Michael drove us to Seattle. As we passed through Olympia and got on Interstate 5, we saw something curious – three police cruisers blocking all three lanes of southbound I-5. Traffic was backed up for miles. I grabbed the phone. Washington State’s Department of Transportation has a website similar to Colorado’s, with traffic cameras and everything.

Here’s where it gets curiouser and curiouser. The camera at the area south of the police barricade was “unavailable at this time.” All the other ones were working just fine and no other information was available online. Weird…

Our first destination in Seattle? REI. How could we pass up the opportunity to visit the granddaddy of them all, the Seattle Flagship store? Let me tell you, this place was HUGE. Two floors of awesomeness. We were there for two hours.

Our next stop: Pike Place Market. Now, I don’t know if the market was always this busy (it was summer, after all) or if it was just because it was Sunday, but Pike Place Market was jam-packed with people. It was hard to walk, harder for a shorty like me to see. It was an interesting mix – florists, fishmongers, tourist crap, and local businesses like Indi Chocolate and DeLaurenti Food & Wine. The single-source chocolate was amazing, and as for DeLaurenti’s – how can you not love a place that stocks over 200 kinds of cheese?

That night we met up with our Seattle connection, Ivy.

Although she actually lived in Kirkland. But anyway. The fact that Ivy let us park in her driveway, and basically gave us full access to her house, is testament to two things. One is the power of CrossFit: Ivy is friends with Walker, who we used to work out with at CrossFit Commence in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

The second is the power of Michael. He’s just that charismatic person that people gravitate towards. With me, it would have been all kinds of awkward, even though Ivy is about as cool a person as I’ve met.

And we met way back in Portland, when we had dinner with her and Walker and Michael’s friend Jon. So we already knew she was awesome. I tend to bow in respect to anyone that competes in Ironman Triathlons.

Ivy walked us down the hill from her apartment to the Hanuman Thai Cafe where we got take-out, and then walked over to a dog-friendly bar, the Flatstick Pub. They don’t have a kitchen there, so you can bring in your own food. Bailey was a big hit there. One guy thought his name was Bay Leaf, which we laughed about for a while.

The weather didn’t exactly cooperate, as Seattle was going through an uncharacteristic heat wave. Honestly, the heat and humidity reminded me of Chicago summers. If not for the haze in the air (from the fires up in Canada), it might have been even hotter.

The next day was the result of another crazy coincidence. I’d met Eric back in Fayetteville – we all played disc golf together at Lake Fayetteville – and he and Michael have been friends for a long time. Anyway, Michael saw on Facebook that Eric was in Seattle and reached out. And Eric invited us to go sailing with him and his friend James.

Eric lives in Tulsa but grew up sailing. He was renting a boat, he said. We thought that sounded great, but this was supposed to be an all-day thing. What about Bailey?

Apparently the owner of the boat said no dogs. But the harbormaster loved dogs, insisted it wouldn’t be a problem, and gave Eric a tip. Pick up the boat, motor down to a different dock (the one with a little store where you can buy ice), and pick up me and Michael and Bailey there.

Hey, it wasn’t our boat. We said sure.

I was less worried about Bailey than I was about myself. Bailey’s generally a calm dog and he’s never been sick in a car before. But boats and I are not exactly friends. I have a long history of motion sickness, although boats are not the only cause. I get nauseous on airplanes. I have to drive on most curvy roads. Candied ginger goes a long way, but the last time I was on a boat (a 3-hour snorkeling tour) I spent the better part of it heaving my guts out. That was in 1996 and I hadn’t been on a boat since.

I was armed with sparkling water and candied ginger. The winds were calm. And at first, it was fun. I helped with the rigging. We took pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was fun… right up until the moment that it wasn’t. I honestly think the Cosco ship had something to do with it.

We passed it pretty close and the waves that ship sent out made my stomach roll.

I took the offered dramamine but it was already too late. The decision was made to get me off the boat. Sails were taken down and we motored in to Kingston Harbor, where we pulled in to an empty slot and went to visit the harbormaster. We paid $10 to park in the harbor and went off for a little lunch.

That might sound odd, but as soon as my feet were on solid ground I felt a lot better. Still, I played it safe for the return journey. I made my way to the Bainbridge Ferry terminal and took the car ferry over to Seattle. It was a much smoother ride. Michael and Bailey sailed back with Eric and James.

 

Bailey was a great sailor, by the way.

Hell, he spent most of the trip asleep.

 

 

Once I landed back in Seattle I walked to Elliott Bay Books. It took me about 30 minutes and was almost completely up a steep hill, but after my time on the boat it felt really good to get my blood pumping. The bookstore seemed to be in a gentrified neighborhood – one block was homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk, the next was hipster restaurants with outdoor seating. Also there were lots of hipsters.

Elliott Bay Books reminded me a lot of the Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver – a huge bookstore with lots of space for wandering. I found a new journal from their pretty extensive collection.

After two big days in Seattle, it was time to move on. We thanked Ivy profusely for her hospitality. We loaded up at a store called Fred Meyer, which is part of the same conglomerate as King Soopers, Kroger, and City Market, but Fred Meyer is a horse of a different color. The store was a large complex – in addition to the grocery and pharmacy, there was a department store full of name-brand clothes, as well as a jewelery store. The jewelry store carried Tissot, Tag Hauer, and Rolex.

That’s the part I couldn’t wrap my head around. I was trying to think of the person who’d say Yeah, I’m just popping out to the store to get some milk. And a Rolex.

We started heading north out of Kirkland in I-405 north. Traffic was already backed up and we crept along at about 20 mph for what seemed like a very long time. When we finally got back to speed I realized that there was no accident, no looky-loos. It was 3pm on a Tuesday.

We’d just gone through a bit of Seattle’s legendary traffic.

Sorry, Seattle. You seem like a pretty cool place. But I never want to live here.

One last note: We talked to Ivy about that whole weird traffic camera thing. You know, how the police had the road shut down, and the traffic camera that would have showed us what was going on was mysteriously not working?

She suggested that there might have been a fatality. Which made a hell of a lot more sense than anything my conspiracy-theory mind had come up with, and also made me feel like a bit of an asshole. Although the best I could find was a blurb on Thurston County’s Facebook page for that day: “I-5 closed both directions for possible suicidal subject.”

Still. Better to look at the rational explanation, no?