Sweating in Seattle

Here is the official first entry for my Blog.

Sitting in the Fremont Coffee Cafe high on caffeine and gently sweating in this muggy Seattle weather. I got in yesterday and settled in to the apartment under Andrew's parent's house that he shares with Clare and his brother Ben. Both Andrew and Clare have been quite accommodating and even sacrificed their bedroom for my visit. I have been out a bit here on Seattle's northside which seems a pleasant sort of sleepy place where people are nice and the streets are clean.

I went to the Wright Brothers bike shop this morning to borrow a pedal wrench to put the pedals back on my bike that I had removed to box it for checking on my flight from Berkeley to Seattle, what a fiasco. First of all I bought my ticket from Alaska Airlines because they said it was free to check a bike in a box. Only caveat was you had to buy a box from them. 20 bucks. Not exactly free but not bad. anyway I get to the airport a couple hours early only only to find out they don't have any boxes to sell me. Funny to force me to buy a box that doesn't exists. Well i tromped around to the other ticket counters until United said they had boxes but they couldn't sell one to me without a reservation. After threatening to buy a ticket just to get the box, they relented and sold me one. Only 10.78. Not bad I thought as I was saving 9 bucks but lo and behold as I check the bike in at the Alaska airlines ticket counter they charge me fifty dollars to check the bike. I began to protest but by this point I was ready to get it over with. I paid the 50 which got my bike to Seattle but hardly in good shape. The box was all but destroyed with only remnants of cardboard loosely taped around the bike. Fortunately no real damage and after a few hours of work today I think it is ready to ride.

After tuning up the bike I rode along the canal located at the bottom of the hill Andrew's house is perched on. One direction heads inland to Lake Washington and the other way out to the sound. apparently the barges come through in the wee hours and the only boats I saw on the water were kayaks. I rode as far as Ballard where I chanced upon a Farmers Market and bought some Apples and Spinach but the Rhubarb I was after proved elusive. Afterward I found a nice outdoors store where I bought a used titanium cook pot and some waterproof stuff sacks for my tour in B.C.

Tonight, after Clare is off work, we plan to catch a movie and make some dinner. One more day in Seattle before I head to Vancouver by train early on Tuesday morning. No pictures today as I didn't bring my camera to the coffee shop. Next time.