Advertisement
Published: September 29th 2013
Edit Blog Post
Another Ferry Ride
From Salt Spring to Vancouver From Salt Spring to Vancouver to Seattle and beyond……..
Due to, in part, a lack of time and in part, a lack of internet I’m playing catch-up with this blog. So to recap a bit:
Thursday, September 26, 2013
We left Salt Spring Island yesterday having had a lovely relaxing week. The sun was out in full force on the return ferry trip and we were lucky enough not only to see Orcas but one young orca came up right alongside the ferry!
We checked into the Landis Suites in downtown Vancouver and had a very good night. This morning we had a swim in the hotel pool (all to ourselves) followed by the buffet breakfast, well stocked with healthy stuff like Danish pastries and a variety of muffins. (It’s a good thing we’ll only do the complimentary breakfast a few times in total on this trip!)
I can well recommend this hotel. On Hornby and Davis it’s pretty central (we walked to our favourite sushi restaurant on Seymour yesterday evening) and the suites are big. Two bedrooms, a small kitchen, large bathroom and a little enclosed balcony type room
with table and chairs.
And now, as I write this entry, we’re sitting in a long line at US Customs at Peace Arch wondering why we’re not even moving let alone still queuing. What is it with US Customs? (see previous entry August 19, 2003!).
It’s Thursday around midday. Have they all gone to lunch because there just aren’t enough people in line to warrant the 80 minutes wait that apparently we now have?
And if we don’t need reminding about the length of time we’re waiting, a little man is pushing a trolley selling ice creams up and down the line. But despite the fact that the sun is out in a beautiful blue sky, this man is not creating a holiday feeling here, rather he’s just rubbing in the tiresome fact that we’re sat completely stationary in a bloody line waiting for someone to let us into the USA.
And you know you’re really in trouble when, approaching the border, you see a sign that asks you to turn off your engine in line when stationary. This is not the kind of sign that suggests flowing traffic. It is not a sign that gives
Waterfront
Seattle, WA hope to the weary driver. In fact the only time I ever want to see a sign like this is when I’ve parked in a car park.
When we finally do crawl up to the Customs Gate, the officer doesn’t exactly radiate friendliness. Rather than asking where we’re going he asks us where we would
like to go thereby making it perfectly clear he has the power to stop us if he so chooses. He establishes we’re on holiday from the UK but still feels the need to ask
whywe are going to San Francisco. It’s tempting to say - at best – “because we want to” or at worst - “because we’re planning on blowing up the Golden Gate Bridge” but either would most certainly result in a far longer stay at Peace Arch than we’ve already endured.
Finally we’re through and foot to pedal (although careful to remain within the speed limit - this close to Customs at least) we head towards Seattle. Although sadly, with just 26 miles to go we still have, according to computerized signs, 50 minutes left, which doesn’t bode well. It would seem that the US is keen to make our
Peppers for Sale
Pike Place Market, Seattle entry as tricky as possible.
Sure enough the traffic starts to build as we approach Seattle. If we thought Vancouver traffic was bad Seattle is even worse (and we’re soon to find that Portland doesn’t get any better either). Even if we were driving through we’d still be sitting in this traffic as the I-5 goes straight through the city.
However, we come off and drive down a couple of blocks to the waterfront. Parking is somewhat pricey but we luck out with a Target car park, which offers 2 hours of free parking if we spend $20 in Target. I think we can manage that (we’ll have fun trying anyway!).
Seattle itself proves to be a good stop. It’s a beautiful afternoon / evening and bathed in sunlight with a blue sky backdrop softens Seattle making it seem more attractive than it probably is.
We wander around fascinating Pike Place Market, find what we think could be
the original Starbucks (but probably isn’t) and enjoy a drink before descending down the steep steps and streets to the waterfront area. A big modern Ferris wheel dominates the waterfront as the sun falls lower and there’s a
Out to Sea
Seattle, WA fair bit of activity on the water (and in it – we spot some large fish and the large head of a seal bobbing out to sea).
We use up our two free hours, decide we’ve probably seen enough and head out of the city on the freeway. It’s 6pm so we’re expecting even more traffic than we had coming in at 3.30 pm so we prepare for the worst but for some inexplicable reason the freeway is far less busy going
out of Seattle than it is on the other side of the highway coming
in.
The evening sky is beautiful and impressive snow-covered Mount Rainier towers above everything to the east of us, staying with us as it turns a gorgeous pinky orange in the setting sun.
We drive to Centralia, a convenient town on the I-5 for breaking our journey en route to California. We check into the Peppermill Empress Hotel and eat pizza in the room before going to bed. It’s another good find (according to Trip Advisor it’s the Number One place to stay in Centralia but there aren’t many to choose from so we were careful not to get too excited).
But it is very clean and comfortable. A good size and quiet and as we find out the next morning it does a good continental breakfast). The only downside is the air con makes too much noise to be acceptable white noise and as we’re on the ground floor we’d rather not leave the window open. It’s a bit hot with all of us in the same room but we manage and get plenty of sleep.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.169s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 15; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0612s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb