Headed east again

July 1--Spokane Valley, WA

The mountain came out! I got some great looks at Rainier in the late afternoon yesterday, when the clouds went away for a little while . . . so they could come back in force today. But I get ahead of myself.

I got into Seattle a bit earlier than I had planned; taking the bus that stopped right across the street got me moving a bit faster to catch it. I then had a bagel with cream cheese while I read the local alternative papers, and began to walk toward Tom's office. I knew I was early, but the big REI flagship store (complete with a mountain path to test bikes and a climbing wall) is right across the street from his office, so I figured I could linger there.

The REI store was lovely, and full of stuff. I did notice, however, that there seemed to be very few overweight people there. Granted, there aren't that many overweight people in Seattle, but at least when the salespeople asked if they could help me (which they did constantly) they did nicely, without the "what on earth are YOU doing here, tubby?" vibe I've gotten from other places. I almost bought an all-purpose head bandanna/scarf/whatever, but I didn't. And they also had socks without toes, for doing yoga, which intrigued me enough I almost bought them as well. Then when I was done shopping, I sat outside and read my book until 11:30.

I called Tom and he met me outside the building. We walked to a sushi place (that I had passed on my way to his office), where the sushi was OK (I was disappointed by almost every meal I had in Seattle; I guess I'm expecting too much). Then he showed me his offices, which were huge and well-lit and full of people and computers and papers. It was great to see him again!

After I left Tom I wandered over to the Seattle Center, where the Space Needle is. No, I didn't go up the Space Needle (although if I'd known that the clouds were breaking, I might have done so to see the skyline). I didn't go to the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame either; I expect that will be my next trip. Instead, I decided on the spur of the moment to take a Duck tour! Yes, the same sort of boats that we took in the Wisconsin Dells.

I got into the Duck late, but managed to get a window. I wound up with a little kid next to me, who didn't speak English and who luckily was more interested in the food his mom kept handing out than in the view. I enjoyed the trip quite a bit, even though the driver was really quite obnoxious. He told bad jokes, laughed harder at them than anyone else did, and never stopped basically shilling for other attractions in the area (I wonder how much they pay him?). Still, it was cool to ride so high above Seattle, and then we went into Lake Union.

Seattle is built all around water, and Lake Union is a freshwater lake between Puget Sound and Lake Washington. What's cooler is, there are float planes that are constantly taking off and landing, and this is also the home of the house barges. If you saw "Sleepless in Seattle", we cruised by the barge where they filmed (and if you want to buy it, it's only $2.5 million!). I loved looking at those house barges; I'd like to live on one someday, although it'd need to be somewhere I could afford.

After we got back, I took the monorail downtown (mostly to say that I had done it) and then wandered back down to the waterfront near the Pike Place Market to stare at Mt. Rainier for a while. After I caught the bus, I found that I could stare at the mountain on the way home as well. There something about these volcanoes here, that just loom in the distance and don't look real, that fascinates me. Unfortunately, once I got back to the RV I couldn't see the mountain anymore, unless I walked to a nearby bird sanctuary. Which I did. The campground is along the Green River, and that sucker must flood bigtime; not only are there advisories on the bus routes that flooding may cause problems, but there's a big temporary levee along the road made of straw bales and plastic bags. Wow.

It got cloudy overnight, and began to rain when I started to pack up to leave (of course!). I got out by 8:10, then ran into traffic so it took me over a half an hour to go about 10 miles, but things sped up more once I got on I-90--yay reverse commute!

We went up to Snoqualmie pass, and then back down the other side. I got off at Roslyn, because I wanted to say hi to Cicely, Alaska. The series "Northern Exposure" was filmed there, and I wound up parking right under the big moose painting on the Roslyn Cafe. I wandered a bit, bought a Brick Tavern T-shirt and a KBHR bumpersticker, then bought a cup of tea at Cicely's Cafe. The lady in there was telling me that she needed to fix the sink in the ladies' room, because someone had sat on it and broken it! Who the hell sits on a sink in a restaurant bathroom? Neither of us could believe it.

Most of the rest of the day was driving, which isn't very interesting. Central Washington, having been scraped by Glacial Lake Missoula, is pretty featureless. At least it stopped raining, though the sun didn't come out. It did get up into the 70's, which was nice.

I'm in the Spokane Valley KOA. It's small and a bit dusty, but we have a nice spot on the end (no cable TV at this spot, alas, but I do have NPR) and Nell enjoyed the sun shining in. Puck is now looking out the window and entertaining people walking by, who can't believe there's a cat in the RV! Oh, and the next-door neighbors just pulled in! Never a dull moment. I'm off to Missoula for a few days tomorrow--yay Msla!