Travel Diary

Saturday

When will I ever learn?

(Note: this transcript was dictated to SIRI. If it still has mistakes, blame her, or Apple.)

Yes, I decided to buy tickets for a better price, and fly out Saturday morning bright and early. Actually, it's not always “bright” at that time since it's occasionally before the sun even rises. This time it was another 6 AM flight, so I had to be up at 4 AM. Last time I did this, I got to bed at a decent hour -- 1130 p.m. This time, it was much later. I believe it was around 1:30 AM. I would not be resting much this night. But I was able to wake up in time, grab my things, and drive to the airport. Now the drive only takes about 30 minutes, so I got there with plenty of time. I checked in and the wait was a bit longer than I had expected since it was so early. But then again it was Memorial Day weekend, so I guess a lot of people were flying out to meet friends and family. I had forgotten that last time I went on a Friday night.

The flight was rather average. I stayed in my seat the whole time and grabbed a few photos of San Francisco as we flew over. I always try to get the left side of the plane so I can do this. I can just grab some decent shots with my DSLR--if the wing isn’t blocking my shot.

My friend Terry picked me up from the airport, and we drove to Seattle to stop the bakery for some breakfast food. When we reached the house, we had some breakfast and then decided to head into Seattle to take the ferry to Bainbridge Island. Leslie drove us to the middle of Bellevue, and we waited for the bus to come. I stopped at Starbucks to get an espresso shot. I usually don't drink espresso because the price to product ratio is rather skewed. Yet I didn't want to fill up on a lot of liquid before a long bus ride. I had to be careful about what I drank. The espresso was good, don't get me wrong. I like coffee in any form.

Soon enough, the bus came and it was $2.50 to head into Seattle from Bellevue. That's a pretty good deal. I often forget how economical bus rides can be, especially when compared to trains. The bus made a few stops, but then headed over the bridge to get into Seattle. What happens next is pretty cool, and it was something I didn't know about. The best goes underground in the city, and it meshes with the metro line, which mainly goes from the city to the airport. However, you don't see any of this on the surface. It's just kind of cool having a private bus tunnel that makes stops to places of interest and usefulness. At our stop, we exited and headed to the Bainbridge ferry station. We were lucky because we arrived about two minutes before the ferry took off. We got tickets (about $7.50 each), and cast off moments later.

The ride was pretty cool. It reminded me of my journey from England to France about 11 years ago, when I took the ferry from England to France. This one was much smaller than that one, but still offered a few neat things. It had a place to get food, although I was not really hungry at the time. And more importantly, it had restrooms. That is always a necessity.

About half an hour later, we arrived on Bainbridge Island. It was interesting watching the cars all take off. I didn't realize it before, but a lot of the drivers stay in their cars and simply drive off when they reach the destination.

We walked around the island. It's a nice place, though doesn't seem to offer much to do after a while. It had a nice little harbor with some pretty fancy boats in it. I thought it would be nice to own one of those boats -- for a few hours at least. I don't think I want to sink my money into something else. I got enough toys as it is.

We then found a little pizza place and I got a slice of pizza and a couple beers. I think I only ate half a slice I didn't want to have both pizza and beers. I was on vacation but I don't want to go too crazy.

We headed back on the ferry and then crossed towards Seattle. It was cool because I could get some pictures of the Seattle skyline and the clouds were parting to makes for some nice photos. Plus, as we were going towards the city, I didn't have the problem of the wake messing up all my shots. It's the little things that count.

Back in Seattle, we headed over to Pikes Market. It's great how close everything is in downtown Seattle. At the market, I stood in line for those mini donuts again. They’re always so tasty when fresh. I got a small bag, and then we headed over for another beer. It was a small place but pretty nice and the owners were friendly. I didn’t want to take too long drinking my beer since the seating was limited. After that, we got some roasted salmon and then headed back to the bus station. This time the bus took quite a long while to arrive--it was about 30 minutes before one finally came.

We headed back into the city of Bellevue, and then Leslie came and picked us up.

I got a small nap in but that time went extremely fast. I was amazed how exhausted I was, but I had only slept for about three hours the night before. Finally, it was time to head back into Seattle. We drove this time and headed over to the Underground Seattle Tour. We had all taken the tour before but now we took the adult version. It's similar to the day version except the language is a little more adult, and the stories are more about prostitutes than the workers that settled the city. Though they both connected in one way or another.

Our friendly tour guide, Carter, was giving the tour and it was her first time doing the night version. She did a great job and had me laughing pretty hard. Of course having a few beers beforehand always helps. In fact, after the tour they give you a free beer invite you to visit the pub for a while. I think they should give the free beer before the tour. Beer makes things just more...magical. Afterwards, we headed back home, and I crashed pretty darn fast.

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