We started off the day with an early trip to the Hiram M. Chittenden (Ballard) Locks. The day started off wonderfully, with a clear morning and a bit of warmth to it. We even managed to see a salmon on the fish ladder and a boat come through the locks – very cool.
I then tried to find our way to Gas Works Park, but I couldn’t follow directions, so I missed it. We’ll try again today. So we then found our way down to the waterfront in Seattle. I don’t remember quite so many people being there when we lived here. It was packed, even at 10am or so on a Sunday.
We picked up our tickets to the Tillicum Village Cruise and then wandered the piers for a little while, where we came across a cool gathering of classic boats sponsored by the Classic Yacht Association. After checking out several of them, we made our way back down to Pier 66 for the departure.
The weather again was beautiful – another departure from when I lived here – but it made for an incredible cruise across the sound to Blake Island and Tillicum Village. The view from the island was also incredible, with clear skies in most every direction, and a good view of the Olympic Mountain Range. Mount Rainier was, unfortunately, obscured by clouds.
What I didn’t really care for was the dinner. The rice was awesome, as was the bread, but the salmon wasn’t the best I’d had. The dances were nice as well, but after a full belly, a dark room and a rhythmic beat weren’t the best of friends – I hardly made it through. Still, for the views and the beautiful day, it was well worth it.
After we returned, we took a trip out to Redmond, where we visited the Redmond United Methodist Church, where I was both confirmed and baptized (a whole lot of years ago). We drove around looking for Microsoft, but since we had no idea where it was, we were unsuccessful in our quest.
A quick drive took us by some of my old haunts, houses of friends and the like, and the 7-11 where I used to buy comics. I didn’t see any comics, and all four of their Slurpee machines were out-of-service, but they did have some tasty taquitos on sale – $0.99 each or three for $2.49. Well worth it!
On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at the house of a friend of mine from junior high, and found out that not only were his parents home, but he and his wife were on their way for a Father’s Day celebration. Since we had spent so much time together way back when, we were invited to stay, and had a wonderful dinner with some old friends.
Finally we headed back to the hotel, and caught a magnificent view of Mount Rainier in the twilight (about 10pm – wow!). Unfortunately we were able to get a number of good views of the mountain since we were again stuck in traffic. Humongous traffic. It looked like there was some sort of fire in the tunnel coming off the Mercer Island bridge and heading into Seattle, so we were backed up for miles. It’s just one thing after another – why is there so much traffic here?