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January 15, 2005
We do more by 10am... (Part Two of Three)
We met Vince, Donna & Ari for breakfast in the hotel around 8:30. By the time they were ready it was closer to 9. We invaded the hotel's breakfast, claiming to all be staying in room 11.
We had planned, after breakfast, to catch a ferry over to Bainbridge to look at that house - but our late start caused us to miss the ferry, so we decided to head to the Seattle Public Library. Vince is, perhaps, the biggest bibliophile I know - and after seeing Dawnise's occasional taunting pictures of our library, he had to visit before he left.
The plan (not my plan, just the plan) was to spend "a few minutes" in the library and catch the next ferry to Bainbridge. The Seattle Public Library is 11 stories tall - 9 of which house books. We started in the children's section, where we left Ari and Donna, and headed out into the stacks. About an hour later we had managed to run a full circuit - not stopping to look at much, and realized we had missed another ferry.
We caught the next one and spent some time at the house - where Dawnise and I saw (or rather didn't see) a disturbing lack of progress. The ground was frozen over and I managed for the first time to actually walk around the house. We had planned to pour a boat/RV parking slab next to the house, but the concrete contractor balked, saying we should wait 'till things had dried out next summer, and after walking on the frozen mud, that seemed like a pretty good idea.
On our way back to the ferry, we took a detour to the Bainbridge Winery - apparently the only winery in the area that grows the grapes they bottle. The tasting was white heavy, with a slew of european grapes that I wasn't familiar with. The one red they had - a Pinot Noir - was good, but not a $30 bottle. They also do limited runs of both a pure raspberry and pure strawberry wine (as opposed to the grape-based products that are more common) which I'll have to check out during the next release.
We were the penultimate car on the next ferry back to Seattle and headed straight for the Utilikilt store - another item on Vince's "must do" list. All four of us (Vince, Donna, Dawnise and I) modeled kilts - apparently the first time the whole party had dropped trou' and donned skirts. ;)
Vince got a black original and a tan survival, Donna an olive original, Dawnise got a black original for her birthday, and somehow, despite my protests, I ended up with a black survival. (I'm not against the kilt thing - I've had a tan original for a while and find it to be a very practical - albeit expensive - garment.) I did, for the record, think it was insane that Vince, Donna, and Dawnise wore their kilts out of the store - into the high-30's drizzly day.
By this time, having not had a big breakfast or stopping for lunch, Donna and Ari were pretty hungry - but it wasn't quite 5pm - so we went to Archie McPhee's to kill a little time.
Leaving the worlds biggest junk, er, curiosity shop, we stopped back at the apartment/hotel to drop off stuff and walked over to Pacific Place to find dinner. We put our names in at Gordon Biersch and spent the hour wait wandering around the mall - into Victoria's Secret (for something for the ladies to wear under the new kilts, of course) and the bookstore (see previous comment about Vince being a bibliophile).
Dinner was good, after a rough start of missing appetizers, and we left sated and cheerful. Back to the apartment to change, and joined them in their room for games. I pretty much immediately fell asleep on their floor, and was awakened when Ari stepped on my head (literally) at which point I decided to head up and sleep in a bed.
They were scheduled to leave the following afternoon, so the plan was to meet them for breakfast and say our farewells.
Posted by dberger at January 15, 2005 11:59 PM
Comments
I honestly didn't feel particularly cold wearing the kilt, that day or the next (or the one after - I didn't wear pants again for the rest of the trip, which created some minor stir in the less cosmopolitan area of Seqium). And the um, accessibility benefits would more than compensate for any minor temperature discomfort. Don't wear a UK to the airport, though. All the snaps and rivets guarantee some extended attention from security (and cross-gender detector-waving is apparently frowned upon).
Posted by: Hendel at January 19, 2005 3:57 PM
Er, that's "Sequim", apparently with a silent "e" - *not* pronounced as "viewing British naughty bits" (the rental agent was quick to correct me on this).
Posted by: Hendel at January 19, 2005 4:06 PM