The Horrible Truth

OK, maybe it's not so horrible. But i moved again. Which is not so easy when you don't have a car. Want to hear about it? Too bad. You're not only going to hear about it, you're going to like it. Because just like Brussels Sprouts, trips to the dentist, early bedtimes, and all the other horrible things adults make you do, it's good for you. At least, that's what we say. And we're the Adults, so you know we never lie and we're always right.

Phinney Ridge was pretty good, but I couldn't afford to live there, so I started to look for someplace a lot cheaper.

And, being a Vosper, I was very methodical about it (it's part of the Vosper Family Curse). I started looking at every place I could afford in this area.I wanted something within an hour, say, of where I was already (that's the area inside the circle on the map).

Since I work out of my house as a writer, I can live pretty much anywhere I want. Trouble was, nothing inside that circle was affordable, at least not by my destitute and impecunious financial standards.

I know, because I looked at apartments for weeks.

So the more I thought about it, the more I realized I would have to think about other ways about the problem. Some people call this thinking outside the box, but the way my finances were, I could barely afford a box, let around what went inside it. Or outside, either. You get the picture. So I started thinking about how Seattle is on the east side of Puget Sound. And there's lots of stuff on the west side, too. And there are ferries in between. So looked at maps and ferry schedules and stuff and started thinking about a little town called Bremerton.

Bremerton is right on the water, and there's a ferry to Seattle that takes about an hour each way. Also, prices there were about half what they are in Seattle.

So I took the bus down to the ferry station and went out to see for myself.
Turns out taking the ferry to Bremerton is pretty involved, but interesting.

First I get on my bke and ride about half a block to the bus stop. Then I put my bike on a rack that folds down on the front of the bus (maybe you've seen them) and take the bus all the way into downtown Seattle. Then I ride down the hill to the ferry terminal (wheee!) dodging traffic, busses and pedestrians. (There are usually a lot of tourists in this part of town, too, but I don't bother dodging them.)

Once you get to the ferry building, you have to go into the big parking lot where the cars are, and pay at a toll booth. Since the ferry costs $6.70 (round trip) for a passenger, and only $7.70 for a passenger plus bike, that means a bike costs...wait...don't tell me, I'll figure it out...



Hey, I asked you not to tell me and you did anyway. What kind of niece and nephew are you? Wait, I know what kind. The Vosper kind, that's what kind. I should know, because your two cousins are pretty much the same way. It's all you dad's fault, raising you up to be a couple of smarty-pantses like that. You mom just married into it, I guess. Poor woman. I tired to warn her what she was getting into, but did she listen? Nooooooooooooo.

So after you ride you bike down to the ferry building, you wait in the loading area-- not up in the nice passenger lounge, no, but no, down in the parking lot with all the cars, in the rain, except there's no warm, dry car to climb into-- fortunately, it was a nice day. At least it was when I took this picture. Most of the time its the middle of the night and you're standing around in the freezing rain and it feels like certain couple of smarty-pantses are dribbling ice water down your neck. Except you're 800 miles away (838, it says here) or something.

And a good thing, too. But since these pictures were taken on the ferry on a nice day, let's pretend that's what it was like, because-- this time at least-- that's what it was. So where'd these seagulls come from? Dunno. But they live here, I'm told. And you can see the ferry coming into port from way out in the Sound.

So once the ferry shows up and the cars have driven off (this lady had locked herself out and they had to get her doors opened up before we could get on), they bring the bicycles on first. So we ride down the middle of the car deck and put our bikes up against the wall on the far end.

Once the bikes are on, they bring the cars in and they fill up the whole lowest deck of the ferry. Meanwhile, the bike riders-- including me-- have gone upstairs to the passenger desks and gotten all the best seats.

You can always tell who's who on the ferry. The tourists go forward to the bow deck out in the wind (which, as you may recall, is cold), the locals grab the booths so they can stretch
out on the seats and sleep for an hour...which is how long it takes to get to Bremerton by ferry. A lot of people just stay in their cars the whole hour. And on the passenger deck, you can tell the cyclists because they're the ones asleep with their helmets on.

Except me. I leave my helmet down with my bike. I mean, who's going to take it?

One of the great things about taking the ferry is the spectacular view of the Seattle skyline as you pull away. and then there are the huge shipping docks off to the other side. That would be the, um, port side of the boat as you're pulling out of Seattle. You can see the skyline fade away out the stern in the distance and then (if you look on the map you can see this) the captain turns right to sneak around the bottom of Bainbridge Island and-- hey! What's that? Look's like the old Disappearing Mountain Trick again! And that's exactly what it is. Mt Rainer has been hiding behind another island (Blake Island, which is a huge park), just waiting to pop out and scare people's underpants off. I don't know what to do with a mountain like that, but it keeps showing up at the weirdest times.

So the ferry sneaks up through the Sounds and eventually thence into Bremerton. The red circle in the picture is the ferry dock and the yellow cicle is the big deck that swings out onto the passenger deck to the pedestrains can walk off like big shots. (The bicycles get to get off the ferry ahead of all the cars and everyone zooms across the ferry yard and past the water sculptures (more about them next time, maybe) to ride up the hill (since the ferry dock is at the water-- which is to say, at the bottom of the hill, everything is uphill from there) and then home.

More about my new house, and how much stuff I can haul on my bike, and why I have a battleship for a neighbor next time!