Our RV Adventures

Gluttons for Punishment.

Yes, we didn’t get tired enough on Wednesday trudging up and up the Seattle hills, so we went back for more.

Jan decided we wanted to Ride the Ducks, see the Seattle Aquarium, and eat some more seafood before we start heading back east tomorrow.

So we took the 11:10 ferry over to Seattle. Nick and Terry came with us, but not to Ride the Ducks, or see the Aquarium. Terry just wanted to spend more time at the Pike Place Market.

But we were smarter this time. We took a taxi up to Westlake Station where we got on the Duck, while Nick and Terry were then able to walk DOWNHILL to the Market, rather than up.

Our Duck Tour left set sail at 1pm for a 90 minute trip around Seattle.

One of the first places we passed was the Elephant Super Car Wash. In 1962 Elvis Presley was in Seattle performing at the 1962 World’s Fair. Every day he brought his beloved pink Cadillac here to get it washed. The Elephant Super Wash was the first automated car wash in the U.S. and he was fascinated with it. And while his Caddy was being washed, he put on a show under the sign.

A few minutes later, we were feet wet in Lake Union, north of downtown Seattle.

We saw houseboats that look like boats,

houseboats that look like houses,

and houseboats that look like mansions,

and houseboats that look like the ‘Sleepless in Seattle” houseboat. Oh, wait. It IS the “Sleepless in Seattle” houseboat.

And in 2008 it sold for 2.5 million dollars, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan not included.

This little inlet in front of the willow tree is where Bill Boeing launched his very first seaplane and started United Airlines and the Boeing Aircraft Corp.

We’ve take a number of the Duck Tours around the country and we’ve found them a good way to see an area, and this one was no different. We got back to Westlake Station about 2:30, and after a mocha and a muffin, we decided to walk down to the Seattle Aquarium, instead of taking a taxi. It was downhill, after all.

We got to the aquarium about 3:30 and spent a little over an hour wandering through all the exhibits.

I’ll just let the photos tell the tale.

Meeting back up with Nick and Terry about 4:45 we walked back down the waterfront to Ivar’s for a last seafood meal. We had chowder, seafood platters, and fish and chips. Really good!

Catching the 6:45 ferry back to Bremerton, we passed this container ship heading out into the Pacific. With these containers stacked 6 high, it’s easy to see how they sometimes fall off in rough weather.

Getting back to Bremerton a little before 8pm, we headed back to the rig with a quick stop at Wal-Mart to pick up our prescriptions.

Tomorrow morning we’ll head out for the Thousand Trails Resort in Leavenworth, WA about 175 miles away.

Unfortunately, we’ll be leaving Nick and Terry behind for a few months, and probably won’t meet up with them until sometime in September, before the Gypsy Journal Rally in Celina, OH. It’s going to be really, really, boring for a while.

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Thought for the Day:

"We’ve all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true."

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Today’s blog is a two’fer: Yesterday’s visit to Seattle, and today’s visit to the Seabeck mudflats to see the eagles.

We caught the 11:10 ferry for the 60 minute cruise across Puget Sound from Bremerton to Seattle.

During our trip we had a lot of fun watching the gulls swoop and dive in front of the ferry, riding the air currents.

One guy had a bag of Cheese Doodles and was hand feeding the many gulls. They would line up hovering in the air, waiting their turn to come and eat.

As we got closer to Seattle, and with pretty much everything we know about Seattle coming from “Frasier”, we were surprised how hilly it was.

And we also got our first glimpse of the Space Needle, a leftover from the 1962 World’s Fair.

Our first stop after leaving the ferry was at Ivar’s, a famous local clam chowder restaurant that’s been around since 1938. Jan and I each had a cup of white clam chowder to hold us over until supper.

After traipsing up some very steep hills,

our first stop was at Pike Place Market, a combination flea market/farmer’s market.

Pike Place Market runs for 6 floors of small shops and stores,

both inside and out.

Jan was immediately captivated by the many flower shops, surrounded by large bouquets of very beautiful and very inexpensive flowers.

Jan ended up with this bouquet of Sweet Peas, with a Peony for spice.

Leaving the market, we walked a few blocks, all uphill, of course, to the downtown monorail station that would take us to the Space Needle for a close-up view. We thought about a ride to the top, but the $18 each ticket didn’t seem worth it.

Coming home on the 5:30 ferry, we had a great view of Mt. Rainer, about 50 miles off to the southeast. At 14,411 feet, it’s considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world.

Mt. Rainier is considered so dangerous that they evacuation signs around. A major eruption on the scale of Mt. Saint Helens, would cause very heavy damage and destruction to downtown Seattle.

Getting back to Bremerton, we headed up to the Silverdale area to have dinner at Red Robin. The food was good, but they had the AC on deep freeze, so we were all cold.

And on top of that, we were all very sore, from trudging up and up all the hills in downtown Seattle. Yes, I meant up and up, not up and down. No matter which direction we walked, it was always up, never down.

I still don’t know how they managed that.

That about wrapped up our Wednesday in Seattle.

Now for today.

Our morning was pretty much spent resting up from yesterday. But about 2 we all headed out to the nearby Seabeck mudflats. We’d been told that it’s a good place to see Bald Eagles at low tide, which was about 4 pm today.

When we arrived, at first we only saw a flock of geese plodding across the flats.

But then we started seeing eagles off around the edges of the mudflats. Here’s a young Bald Eagle who was bathing in one of the small streams still running through the area.

Then we started seeing the eagles zipping around over us, in many cases so fast it was hard to focus on them.

We also got this shot of a Bald Eagle being chased and harassed by this smaller bird.

Looking back our first juvenile had been joined by a second one.

And then a third, this one a mature one. You can even see the water he’s splashing up while bathing in the stream.

Then he spent about 10 minutes strutting around, flapping his wings to dry his feathers.

We had a great time out there, but didn’t get as many photos as we would have like, since their speed and closeness made it hard to get them in focus.

Leaving the eagles behind, we drove over to Mattioli’s Pizza, a local place we found highly recommend on the Internet, and it was really good. Really great pizza!

Coming home we made a stop at a nearby Barnes & Noble, a Best Buy, and then it was back to the RV park for the night.

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Thought for the Day:

There’s a pill for just about everything … except stupid!

sgdf