Raccoons & Rick Steves

We both woke up around 3am this morning to the raccoons up on the roof of the yurt, making their noisy way over to the grapes that are growing at the yurt's doorway and on the rooftop. We had a good giggle about it, though I kept checking to make sure they didn't fall in because it sure sounded like they might! I was really hoping for a photo opp, but no, they were completely up above the sight line of the "windows" (patches of screening that are loosely covered in brocade curtains) and I think I startled them when I flushed the toilet, anyway. We didn't get much sleep after that ruckus, so we had coffee and breakfast and were rearin' to go just after 7:00am, but there is seriously zero point in getting involved in Seattle rush hour if it can at all be avoided, so we stretched the leisurely morning until the 8:10 shuttle was due. So, there is this quaint little beach area at the base of the hill and where the shuttle begins and ends called Alki Beach, and it is like all of the best of city living with all of the best of beach living. The apartments are very Hawai'i beach or California beach looking, but they are surrounded in amazing, jungle-like foliage. They definitely earned the title "The Emerald City". The view from the beach over the Sound is so pretty and cool. We've even seen jellyfish swimming about in the water! Pretty freakin' cool!

Not too much on the agenda for the day, so we decided to go with our original plan of heading up to Edmonds to check out the Rick Steves store. We are total dorks for Rick Steves. If you don't know who he is, just Google him and you should find loads of very helpful travel tips videos on traveling in Europe. He is awesome! We even went to one of his talks when he came through Minneapolis, and like star struck fanbies, we took an ecstatic selfie with him in the background! It has become a family joke with my sister and brother-in-law because we kept blathering on to them about his travel tips, pushing his videos on them before we went to France, and now we refer to him as, "Our Lord and Savior, Rick Steves", so this was our pilgrimage in his high honor. Speaking of high, this whole town seems to be on drugs. The bus ride, an hour and two buses, was quite the experience in itself. And with all due respect to Rick Steves, who himself is a very vocal proponent of legalizing marijuana, the legalization of pot here has undoubtedly created some initial hype in its availability and for the people who would cash in on its distribution. I have mixed opinions on the subject, which I'll table for another time, but suffice it to say that it was like a bus ride into a Bob Marley song, mixed with a little Patti Smith. You smell dope being smoked EVERYWHERE, and there are people lying in the streets EVERYWHERE and the homelessness is even worse than I could have even imagined, even after already seeing quite a bit of it. Anyway, the ride was pretty interesting, and it was good to hit the 'burbs. Edmonds is an incredibly quaint little slice of the Emerald world, and we both began imagining a life of retirement there. We grabbed some local newspapers to price out some property :)

We had lunch in a lovely little cafe, then wandered down to the beach to watch all the kids playing in the sand and the lineup of cars all waiting to board the ferry to the town across the way. Incredible, that. They do that down here all day; vehicles driving onto these massive ferries built to shuttle people and their cars from port to port. It is something I don't want any part of, but fascinating to watch how swiftly they can get these things moving, considering the cargo and chaos. I have commented numerous time how awesome I think it would be to work on a tour ferry, like the one we went on yesterday, or even just the regular water taxi's that we've been taking every day.

Another long ass bus ride back into the city, with this bus encountering engine problems the entire ride and had to several time just shut off the engine to wait it out. Relieved to finally get close enough to downtown to catch another bus, we jumped off and caught another one to take us to Ebbet's Field, a store that sells vintage baseball and sports gear, so John could swap out a shirt he bought yesterday for a better fitting one. Then we made our way to the pier to grab a couple of Frappacino's, we hopped the water taxi home. Dinner was a lovely pub-style affair with comfort food and beers, and now we're beaching ourselves in the yurt for our final night. I wonder if those crazy raccoons will be back tonight to eat more grapes :) I'll try to snap a photo!
Love & hugs,
R&J