The Big Green House

Monday, August 18, 2003

 

Sun and sea and piracy

Science Girl needed a beach fix, so we decided to round up the dog and head over to Bainbridge Island yesterday. We just barely made the 1:10 ferry, as I stupidly left the house without checking the Mariners schedule. Traffic around the stadium was pretty damn ugly, but we got to the terminal just in time. We were third from last on board.

Having grown up an hours drive from any appreciable body of water, the concept of the ferry is kind of an odd one to me. I mean, I�m not scratching my head trying to figure out how it works. (It's magic, right?) It just seems very strange to me to be able to drive the car on to a boat, counter-intuitive & all that. Plus I�m always afraid the car will fall off the end of the ship or something.

It�s happened before, you know.

Luck was on our side this time out, though. The ship stayed afloat the whole way over and our Subaru did not plummet into the icy depths of Puget Sound, coming to rest among the octopuses and Microsoft executives who crossed Gates one time too many.

It�s a quick trip over to the Winslow terminal. We were back on dry land and looking for a grocery store by quarter to two. The folks there have cleverly disguised their supermarket to look like a restaurant to the untrained, lunch-deprived eye. Kudos to them, as it took us several times through downtown to figure out what was up.

Once we were properly provisioned, it was off to the beach. While it would be fair to say that we all had a good time, I think Lucy had more fun than both us humans combined: she attempted to take a hermit crab away from a little girl, found and tried to eat a dead Dungeness crab, sampled the local seaweed, and developed a taste for saltwater. Between that and taking her first and second ferry rides (lotsa wind, many new and intriguing smells) it was quite a big day for the little dog.

bmarkey 8/18/2003 08:56:00 PM