Best From Worst

Day three stranded in Seattle. I gotta admit, sleeping on Mother Earth without all the proper camping provisions is a pretty painful experience. She put quite the pain in my hip by grinding some root or rock against it all night as i tossed and turned. I was definitely looking forward to my sleeping pad. Not to mention a pair of shoes, considering I was left with only my sandals and it rained EVERY day I was in Seattle. By the time I got my bike I figured I'd have a small collection of foot fungi. Dr. Baroni might be interested in them, who knows.

Anyway, enough discussion about my foot disease, less Tinactin wants to pay me for wearing their shirts across the USA. So Josh and I had decided we'd go into Seattle asap on Thursday to start an take in the city. There were rumors floating around that my bike would come in the following day and I wanted to at least step foot within city limits. This would mean I'd need to figure out the bus system, which at first glance seemed to have a fair bit of complexity. We took a practice bus trip to my buds over at the local UPS store which worked fine and picked up some more camping gear. The Church Director, Al, seemed to be building trust in us and decided to offer us a storage shed outside by our backlawn campsite. This was a big deal in that it allowed us to store, and lock, all of our items whenever we left the area. It also meant we weren't required to back at the church by 7 to get our tent to camp. So we could stay out as long as we wanted.

So we loaded up our crap into the shed and took the 174 into downtown Seattle. We saw a couple cool sites along the path- the Boeing plant as well as the football and baseball fields. But I gotta say, I was VERY impressed with Seattle. The city is gorgeous! I've never seen such a clean and colorful city. For that matter all of the Seattle area seems lush and green but it was unique to see so much vegetation in a city. So we started off by making our way down to the waterfront, which was really nice despite the ever-present misty rain. The view of the city is just phenomenal from the pier. We eventually wandered across the Seattle Aquarium and while admittedly small it had some pretty cool stuff! Probably the coolest of all exhibits was the octopus they had. A big sucker he was... probably looking at ~2.5 foot long tentacles to give an idea. I took a video of him crawling around his tube. A bit tough to see but it'll make my blog's video debut.

Once we finished up at the aquarium we were both pretty hungry and made our way to Pike Place Market, a unique shopping district, to get some food. It was a pretty cool place. It was almost like a large apartment complex with a bunch of small shops with numerous floors to the building. Apparently some of the local fish merchants will toss fish around for people to have for free? I dunno. Sadly, most places were closing up shop when we got there but one did pique our interest- the Seattle Brewing Company. We were both really hungry and the thought of a beer seemed pretty enticing. In honor of Matt Hoffman I demanded we get a sampler to taste the local flavors. Just because I know you'll appreciate it Matt, here's the list. Number 6 was my preference.


So we both have the equivalent of 1.5 beers on an empty stomach, so I'm borderline drunk of course. We head out after eating some, feeling great now, learning the sky's completely cleared up and we want a view of the city from a roof top. We were told that Columbia Tower was the highest point in the city and wanted to make our way there but didn't know where to go. So we wander into a candy/pastry type of shop to ask someone. Well, we strike up conversation with the two employees, Danny and Alan, and not only do they give us directions, but they gave us what must had been 20-30 dollars worth of brownies and caramel apples. And yes Alan, I did want the apple. It was freaking delicious.

A center stage shot for Danny and Alan, you guys totally made our day. I hope you see this.

Josh looking innocent as always. And seriously, that's like only 1/3rd of a brownie. They gave us two!

So moderately buzzed and now high on sugar we wander toward Columbia Tower only to learn it was closed when we got there. Damn. So we went to an office building next door, trying to bribe a security guard to bring us upstairs for the remnants of our brownie. Sadly, this failed, but he did recommend the library. And dude, whoa. The library is CRAZY! I mean, I'm obviously not one for reading many books but the design and layout of the place was wild. I can't even begin to explain it. Here's a picture of the main entrance, but it does no justice to this 10 story wonderland. If you're in Seattle- go to the library.

So we tried getting a nice view from the library but really it wasn't easy. So we decided to give the waterfront a second go at. And man was it worth it. The view was just spectacular. Honestly, when the day first begun, I was feeling really pissed about the whole bike situation and kinda depressed, but after spending the day in Seattle and getting to see so much, I had a whole new outlook. I was almost glad I was delayed. I would had hated to have missed that opportunity.

I dunno, not to sound horribly cheesey, but look at this. Tell me this isn't going to be the beginning of a amazing journey?