« So Much for Wine Tasting | Main | A Great Vintage, with Notes of Chocolate and Peanut Butter »
August 25, 2005
It can't already be Thursday...
After abandoning our wine tasting aspirations, we went to the Zoo yesterday. It's a nice zoo, and while we didn't have time to see everything, we put a serious hurting on it in three and a half hours. We'll definitely go back - it's a nice place to just hang around, and it's nice that we can catch a bus (the #5) within a couple blocks of the ferry terminal and it drops off a block from the West gate.
Today we woke up early, packed a lunch, and were out of the house by quarter past eight on our way to Port Townsend, where we boarded the Olympas (...it was spelt like that on the van, I've never seen so many bleedin' aerials...) for a 4 hour whale-watching excursion.
Dawnise, who's not terribly keen on boats and open water, did incredibly well. This is the second time her love of nature has come into conflict with her fear of water, and unlike the trip to the Great Barrier Reef, this wasn't a terribly large boat (about 40 long). (Oh, and don't spend too long noodling on the whole "afraid-of-water-but-live-on-an-island" thing, it just is...)
We saw a Minki whale just off the starboard side about twenty minutes into the trip, and in about another twenty minutes were watching a group of around eight Orcas (the name Killer Whale is no longer PC, apparently) circle dinner.
After watching their antics, and taking a boat-load of pictures with the 10x zoom Olympus camera (finally found a use for the "drive" mode on the camera - even still, I'm sure I managed to miss all the really good bits), we headed back, slowing during our pass along Protection Island long enough to see a couple of Bald Eagles standing on the beach, looking hungrily at some elephant seals.
Got back to harbor with no incidents, and stopped at the Fair Winds winery just outside of Port Townsend. The winemaker, Mike, was a nice guy and we chatted a bit while we (mostly I) tasted the seven wines he had open. Dawnise noticed a Fireweed Mead on the tasting board, but he was sold out (drat). He plans to bottle the new stock in about a week, so I'll have to plan to head back over. Came home with a bottle of his Port, which was the only of the seven that Dawnise and I could agree on.
We got home and promptly decided to take a nap - which we did. Now it's time to go figure out dinner.
It can't already be Thursday - that means only three more days 'till I have to go back to work; an event I'm looking forward to less and less for various reasons these days...
Posted by dberger at August 25, 2005 6:40 PM