Harbor Tour, Mariners, Ivar's, Underground Seattle

What a fabulous day! We woke from a chilly night in the yurt all snuggly in our four-poster bed, enjoying that vacation bliss of not having to get up at a certain time. Although, since we are still on Central Standard, we still woke up really early Seattle time, which gave us a leisurely timeframe for enjoying coffee and breakfast before our harbor tour at 9:25am. John woke a couple of times during the night to strange sounds, once was likely people using the sauna right next to our yurt, and the next time he said he heard scratching and hissing, that was the neighborhood raccoon (as confirmed later by the owner, Lisa, who also mentioned that there is now a little black stray kitty in the mix of interesting animal interactions in the yard! Ha!) Since I wear earplugs to bed anyway, I heard nothing :) Although I would have liked to snap a photo of the raccoon!

They have a whole regimen here for conservation, recycling, composting, etc., so the morning shower in the tiny shower was only a little strange in that you have to turn on the shower and catch the water in a tub while it heats up, then the water goes to a trickle until you get in and pull the lever and then the hot water is released into a heavenly spray from one of those nice shower heads. They provide everything for a shower: organic/vegan bath, hair, skin and sunscreen product, Qtips, cotton balls, toothpaste, mouthwash and tons of other stuff that I never use. We totally have to hit Trader Joe's when we get home, that's all I know. They have this incredible citrus body wash from Trader Joe's that was awesome. Oh, and for those of you who just wait with baited breath to know about how my walnut bladder is holding up (Harold), I have to say, having no uterus has the best thing that has ever happened to me, I do believe. I not only do not have to worry ever, ever, ever, EVER AGAIN about dealing with my "dot" on the road, but it also removed all the fibroids (four of them) that were blocking my ability to pee/poo normally! No more peeing every ten minutes (not even exaggerating), no more walnut! It's more like a teacup, maybe :) But seven hells, I will take a teacup. I only need to empty my teacup about 2-3 times a night at the most instead of my previous 7-8 times! Sometimes only once! Huzzah! And, I must give Seattle props for having Biffy's everywhere. There are loads of tourists, and quite a few homeless people living along the piers and under the freeway, so the porta-potty's are a sensible option. Now, if San Francisco and Minneapolis would figure that out, it would be a happier, and more sanitary, world. Ahem. I digress.

So we jumped onto the free shuttle down to the pier, hopped the 10 minute ferry over to Pier 50, grabbed our tickets for the Argosey 1-hour harbor tour and only had to wait a few minutes to board. It was a narrated tour with lots of interesting facts and sights to see. We even ran into a fellow Minnesotan who was working on the boat. I'm always amazed at how sports stuff seems to unite men from all walks, and they always comment on John's hats or tee shirts with their sports facts. So right away the guy saw our Twins gear and began MN polite chit-chat lasting no longer than 5 minutes. That's the way we do it, yo. I took a ton of photos on the boat, and we began dreaming of what property we'd love to live in if we relocated. After docking, we decided on fish and chips from Ivar's for Second Breakfast (10:30am snack). Tons of giant seagulls come swooping in to beg nibbles and one of them was screaming so loud, I wish I'd have gotten video, it was so funny! We had a very polite seagull begging from us, so I got a photo of that one. So cute :)

Then we headed down the road to catch the noon Mariners game versus the Baltimore Orioles. What a cool stadium with AMAZING food. Like, real food. They have tons of options for really yummy stuff that is prepared fresh there, pizza by hand to order, even vegetarian and vegan places. But we decided to again have Ivar's seafood, since it's a big thing here and we both really wanted to try the chowder. So John had the chowder in the bread bowl and I had a bowl of it and we shared the bread. We wandered the stadium for most of the game, our seats were in the full sun, so we walked all over, then crashed another shadier section and the usher let us sit in some posh, cushy seats in the shade which was awesome. I have to comment on the niceness of people here. They are very polite. We only witnessed one incident of road rage so far, which is astonishing considering their unbelievable traffic jams. I would not want to have anything to do with Seattle traffic, like ever. Oh wait, I think I'll be driving us out of here in two days, so...ugh, I have that to look forward to! I need John's mad-monkey navigating skills, so I offered to drive us to Mt. Rainier on Thursday. Oh, and the Mariners won!

After the game, we went on tour of Seattle's underground "tunnels" that was really cool; a recommendation from John's brother, Bill. It was cool to traipse around under Seattle, but as you might imagine, musty as all sin. It was a very interesting history of how Seattle was built and how much people screwed things up knowing nothing about the tides or how to build functional sewer systems! Yuk. It makes the tossing of chamber pots in middle of the road sewage "system" of old England look completely sterile in comparison. They have other tours, too, so if you're in the area, I would highly recommend it for a nifty something different.

We hopped on another perfectly timed ferry and shuttle back to our haven in the yurt. We met the other kitty and I got photos of both of the sweet little nutters. I'm passing this off to John to post loads of photos!
Love & hugs, R&J