Day 61 – June 3

An unceremonious awakening at 5:30 A.M. thanks to some curious crow bent on inspecting the BRT’s rooftop paraphernalia. Luckily our installation seemed to be in order and the inspection ended quickly.

We were on the road 9:30 ish headed for the Clinton-Mukilteo ferry at the south of Whitbey Island, pretty much having had our fill of the excitement of ferry watching as a spectator sport. Although the skies were clear when we departed we soon drove into fog and clouds as we headed south, not a good sign. It is taking some time to get used to the volatility of coastal weather again, especially coastal weather next to mountains.

As we had been dry camping for several days and as Casey State Park did not have a dump station we had to make a side trip into the South Whidbey State Park to use their dumping facilities, one of Sean’s favourite parts of RVing.

We stopped at Freeland for a late breakfast for Sean and Carla. They were downsizing on provisions as they probably won’t be cooking as much during the next week on Vancouver Island while they are visiting with Casey.

Freeland

We made it to the ferry around 11:30. Although the ferry runs every 30 minutes even with our early arrival we were one of the last vehicles to board. Again it was a very pleasant crossing and we were soon making our way south on the I-5 to our motel. We decided that we wanted to be closer to downtown than a campground would allow so we booked two nights at a Days End north of central Seattle.

Once we registered for our rooms and had a quick change of clothes we joined Sean and Carla in their vehicle for the trip to downtown Seattle. Their vehicle, being smaller is much more big city downtown friendly. It was about a 20 minute drive in traffic to a public parking area close to the Pike’s Market. Pike’s Market is an amazing zoo of activity selling all manner of produce and product to all manner of people. From fish mongers, to flower merchants, to artists, musicians, and restaurants you could probably survive comfortably within the confines of the Market and never have to leave except to sleep.

There is no bad gelato

We walked out of the market to find the ‘gum wall’ a piece of dynamic public art made out of pieces of gum. It defies description and is constantly changing as new ‘artists’ add their personal touch, including, in some cases business cards pressed into the fresh ‘paint’ imagine my surprise when from some distance I spotting HRm logo business card and find the business card of one of HRM’s Councillors pressed into the piece. I later confirmed by e-mail that the card had only been left the day before, talk about a small world.

The ‘gum wall’

Does your chewing gum loose it flavour

After exploring an antique mall and Pike’s Market we walked the waterfront and paused for some refreshments under Seattle’s version of the London Eye, a 43 gondola Ferris wheel that provides spectacular views of Seattle’s waterfront. Later we stopped at The Crab Pot for a seafood dinner. As you might expect from the name this restaurant is known for its crab which is served steamed at your paper covered table by being unceremoniously dumped from a bucket onto the table top. Patrons are provided with a bib, a wooden board, and a mallet and basically told to have at it. In light of the smashing, bashing and flying crab body parts that ensued the bib should have been a tyvek body suit but we all left fully satisfied with an authentic west coast seafood meal.

We returned to our hotel to enjoy a bottle of Prosecco that we have been carrying for far to long to celebrate the last night that the mini armadillo will be together for a while. For those of you who have been waiting on tenter hooks for the blog address of the LRT here it is, and they have been busy posting so you have some catching up to do.

http://nomads2013.wordpress.com/