We had a lovely day of touring through the inlets and bays of the Puget Sound today until like a tsunami a disaster from far away struck us in Seattle. But I will explain more about that in time.
We awoke reasonably early and I took the dogs for a little stroll in the area just around the hotel. While the waterfront of Gig Harbor is charming, our hotel was located about a half mile inland right on the freeway. The area around it was not so charming, but there were a few patches of grass and that was all my friends really needed. After a quick trip to the hotel breakfast bar, we were on our way. Our plan for the day was to wander through different sights on the Kitsap Peninsula, cross over to Bainbridge Island, and then to take the ferry straight to downtown Seattle.
Our first stop was Scenic Beach State Park. I have to say that this park’s odd name is certainly warranted: the only real reason to go there is look across the Hood Canal as the wonderful snowcapped peaks of the Olympic Mountains. Our day was perfect for this. It was cool and crisp and the mountains seemed close enough to touch.
Dogs, as I have noted, do not seem to care much about dramatic scenery. But there was a lot of stuff on that rocky beach which they did find fascinating. There was some seaweed, always good for rolling in, and there were lots and lots of oyster shells, or, as they would describe the “deliciously stinky white rocks.” There were also a few jellyfishes which had been left behind after high tide, but dogs had enough sense to not get too interested here.
Our next stop was Poulsbo. Like Solvang, California, Poulsbo is one of those towns which survived by embracing its ethnic heritage. In this case, the town calls itself “Little Norway” and the shops and bakeries which line Front Street serve up nostalgia warm and sweet each day.
Not being Norwegian, not wanting to buy tee shirts, and dragging around two large dogs, we were not perhaps the ideal visitors to Poulsbo, even if we had just watched I Remember Mama recently. So John, ever eager for a bit of an adventure hit on a different way to explore this part of the Puget Sound. We rented a powerboat.
There are not many days in the Pacific Northwest when it is warm and sunny enough that having an old-fashioned powerboat must seem like the perfect idea, but this was one of them. It was about 80 in Poulsbo and the cool breeze created by making pushing the engine as hard as possible felt wonderful. Edie did not like boats when we first introduced her to them a few years ago, but now she loves them. She spent most of our 90 minutes on the water right in the bow as if she were our canine figurehead. When were were going a little slower, like we were in the picture below, she would turn around as if to say, “Hey. Speed this thing up a little, won’t you?”
After our ride, we had coffee and some of those Norwegian bake shop items. It would be wrong not to sample the local cuisine, right? We then went off towards Bainbridge Island. We stopped briefly at a tiny state park which was supposed to be the site of Chief Seattle longhouse. Well, there was nothing there now, and we only lingered for a few moments.
Once on Bainbridge Island, we went to Fay Bainbridge State Park. The dogs adored this and played in the shallow water and the seaweed. They seemed completely indifferent to Mount Rainier almost seeming to float above the land.
There is a wrong way and a right way to come into Seattle. The wrong way is to drive up Highway 5 past Tacoma and the airport. The traffic is awful and it is not particularly attractive. The right way is to come on the Bainbridge Island ferry which slowly carries you across the Puget Sound to a miniature Manhattan. With each minute the cities grows larger and large until you are close enough to nearly see people in the windows.
Of course, if you arrive at afternoon rush hour, as we did, the spell is broken by the slow Seattle traffic. But it’s still the best way to come.
Tsunamis carry the destruction of a far away earthquake across the globe. Well, in Seattle we felt the destruction of the Irish banking collapse. We had made reservations at the Maxwell Hotel by the Seattle Center. It is a new hotel, it takes dogs, and it was offering a variety of really good rates to establish itself in the city. We did the usual internet search for the best deal, and it 1-800-Hotels offered a slightly better price than Expedia or Travelocity. I went in to register and was told that they did not have a registration for us. I pulled out my 1-800 Hotels voucher to show them that indeed I did have a reservation. That was when the manager appeared and explained that 1-800 Hotels had declared bankruptcy and all the reservations made through it were cancelled. She was sorry but they had no rooms and hoped we had luck getting our money back. She was willing to make a few phone calls to see if they could find us something at one of their “sister properties”, and she did find us a place for one night.
Stuck in traffic on the way to the new hotel, I pulled out the iPad and did a quick Google search. It turns out that 1-800-Hotels is based in Dublin, and its creditors, uncertain of its bank balance, demanded immediate payment for all its accounts or it would cancel them. The internet travel service went to Bankruptcy Court to prevent them from doing this, but that injunction apparently came too late for us and for thousands of other travelers around the globe. We are staying tonight at the University Inn near the campus. I have no idea where we will be tomorrow night. Maybe sleeping in the car. Probably not….
Tomorrow, we have a full day of activities in Seattle planned. I guess checking for another place to stay will be one of them. I’ll keep you posted.
