Vandrea Does America: Day 11- Seattle, WA (Lake Union and Freemont District)

Sunday 7/1/12
Today was our first day in Seattle. Though a good day overall I did almost have a breakdown from all the walking we did. Almost...Based on all the research Isaiah did the most hassle free and affordable way to enjoy Seattle is to park at one of the several surrounding cities Park and Ride and take a link train or bus into town. We decided on using the Tukwila Park and Ride for our first day. After much deliberating and help from an overly helpful security guard we decided on the ORCA card. For an additional $5 the ORCA card allows you to carry your fare money on a card which is easier than using cash and also makes transfering a breeze. Our first stop? To ride a wooden boat! It just so happens that Seattle is having their annual Wooden Boat Festival this weekend. We started our morning off with a free ride on a wooden sail boat. Neither one of us had been on a sail boat before and so it was a neat experience on it's own. What made it even more enjoyable was that the skipper, first mate and a fellow passenger were incredibly knowledgable and so we learned more about sail boats than we thought possible on our first trip. Typically when sailing in Lake Union you would hope for a north to south flowing wind since this best aligns you with the dock. What we had was a partially eastern wind and though the skipper and first mate were pros and we didn't notice a difference, apparently it was a little more difficult to navigate the dock than normal. As we sailed along we also learned that right along the lake is the house boat from the movie Sleepless in Seattle.

The boat ride helped us wake up for the day ahead and probably made us overly confident because we proceeded to walk miles upon miles attempting to find an arboretum with no map. We made it to the university district and asked a student. She indicated we were far from it. We decided to head off to the Freemont district instead (only to find out when we finally got a map, that we weren't far off from the arboretum at all). The walk was long but we stopped along the way to see Gas Works Park. This park boasts huge gas pipes and it has indeed been made into a park but also still retains it's industrial functions. Quite an ecclectic mix of children flying kites on the hill and dump trucks rumbling by. This is only one of the unique treats the Freemont district has to offer. On Sundays they have an incredible market that boasts one stand for produce and every other stand for all kinds of really unique local crafts, arts and an underground parking garage converted into an antique fair. We continued on to Ballard, but didn't make it past the industrial section.

Eventually we located a bus and rode to downtown but not before I collapsed in front of the Fred Meyer's from exhaustion and made us promise to ride more buses the rest of our time here. We made it back to Tukwila and we were so tried and had such a hard time finding anything we settled for a nice neighborhood that had Neighborhood Watch signs posted. A tip: If you are going to sleep in your van in some else's neighborhood and notice all the houses are big and expensive looking...Get out of there! -A