Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Pacific Northwest Trip May 2009 Day 13 Friday May 22

UPDATED: February 5, 2022

This is the thirteenth and final of a series of posts dealing my fourth trip to Seattle and first of two trips that year. I’ve made minor corrections to these reports. Also, I’ve added additional thoughts with the hindsight of three years later or to add further clarification.

My camera alarm woke me at 5:05.  Even so I missed by 5:30 ferry (while not the only reason, the bag I just bought at Half Price books fell apart).  Luckily there was another sailing at 6:10 so I took the chance to snap a few shots of the ferry terminal. 
 
[NOW: I left from Green Tortoise Hostel, Seattle, The First Hill branch of Half Price Books is now closed. The ferry terminal is the Washington State Ferry Terminal.]

I took the ferry to Bainbridge Island and got some nice sunrise pics of Seattle in the process.

A nice coach took me to Lofall and I took a water shuttle back to Southpoint.  There was a bit of a wait there so I did most of my calculations for customs while waiting for a bus (nothing else to do there). 

A bus took me to Port Angeles; this time a regular bus and not a coach.

[NOW: The Bainbridge-Lofall-Southpoint-Port Angeles route was just temporary, a result of the Hood Canal Bridge closure and is no longer a means of getting to Seattle by public transportation.]

I visited Port Book and News than had breakfast at a place whose name I can't remember but it's beside EZ Pawn and had a nice open air section.  I bought a DVD at E-Z Pawn, checked out Odyssey Bookshop and a CD place, then walked to Rite Aid in a failed attempt to get one more memory card (I visited a pet shop along the way).

[NOW:  The CD store was probably Budget CD & Tapes, which later moved and is apparently now Coog's Budget CDs, Tapes & Records. The pet store is Patricia’s Pet Shop.]

I decided to take the Victoria Express back instead of the Coho to same time.  Unfortunately on my way back, the arch support of the backpack I took to Europe gave up the ghost.  Because it's just the backing that went it's still useful as a laundry bag but it's gone on its last trip. 
 
[NOW: The Victoria Express is now a local tour ferry and no longer goes to Victoria. The MV Coho is run by Black Ball Ferry Line.]

I got held up in Customs, I imagine because I found so many DVDs for $5 or less, maybe my figure seem pretty low.  One guy checked my bag while the other checked my camera, confirming that my statement that I just take pictures of everything seemed to be true.  I then lugged my bag home.

There were actually two things afterwards in  Victoria which relate to the trip: I was talking to my friend Darcy about the cat in the bag incident.  At that point Darcy pointed out that we were passing a cat that was on a balcony staring at a robin.

And then came the perfect ending for the trip: My friend Sita and I were in line for a movie.  We went inside to see if we could save time lining up by going to refreshments; we couldn't.  We went back in line and Sita asked when I got in.  The guy ahead of me said 2, which surprised me but I assumed that being so loaded down he just was on the same sailing.  So I remarked that I had gotten held up in Customs.  It turns out that the guy directly ahead of me in line was the Customs official who checked out my camera!  I pride myself on being a good writer, but honestly I could not have made up a better ending than that.

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