and i wonder what i'm forgetting

[rone]

MEETING WITH FRIENDS AND FAMILY: In Vancouver, Kim and i met with eviltofu for lunch, just in time before he heads back across the Pacific.  In Seattle, we met with rimrunner for brunch.  As for unelljayfied people, we went to Safeco Field with Kim's mom's cousin Gary and his wife Marguerite (on the way there, Kim and i recognized Curt Golden's "Bicycling to Afghanistan" playing on their stereo; turns out it's on a CD given to them by their friend Bill Rieflin), and the next morning we had brunch with Marguerite and the Bubble Man, and on the way back through Seattle we saw my mom's cousin's Pablo's wife Constanza and her two kids, María José and Martín (Pablo was stuck in Idaho doing some shit job for the FAA), and she made us a very tasty dinner, and the kids were in full show-off-to-the-guests mode.

On the way to Eugene, we stopped in Portland to have dinner with Alan Scott, and also spent some time with his lovely wife, Roberta, as well as the heirs to the Throne of Power, Daniel and Olivia.  You Seattle t.b folk should drop him a line next time you're in Portland for a Powell's run; he's great company.  Lastly, we spent a couple of nights at Kim's friend Judy's place.

FERRY COMEDY: There hasn't been a vehicle ferry from Victoria to Seattle for quite some years.  Time to burn the old map and get a new one, i guess.  The next vehicle ferry out of Victoria to the US was to Port Angeles, departing at 19:30 (at that time, it was 13:00).  We decided instead to drive back to Port Swartz, take the ferry back to Tsawwassen and drive to Seattle.

STANLEY PARK: We had a nice hike, looking at the bird wetlands and  gardens, then heading for the Vancouver Aquarium to watch otters "swim around on their backs and do cute little human things with their hands" as they were fed clams; also, one of the seals in the seal tank would swim to the surface, get a breath of air, dive down below one of the rocks, blow out all the air noisily, and repeat.  We also checked out the belugas, the dolphin show, and the hawk talk, all of which was outdoors; indoors, we touched the tops of horseshoe crabs and saw a huge catfish, maybe 6' long, in the Amazonian tank, as well as a bizarre display in the shark tank: a smaller blacktip shark violently grabbed a larger blacktip by its left gills and powered it down to the bottom of the tank, where they stayed still for about five minutes until one suddenly released the other and they swam away (during this time, the other sharks are completely ignoring them).

Comments

[mrbalihai.livejournal.com]

There hasn't been a vehicle ferry from Victoria to Seattle for quite some years

Odd. There was when we were at BAST.BOB.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Has it really been 5 years? Jeez, time flies.

[mskala.livejournal.com]

Really? I came over on the Victoria Clipper, which is passenger-only, and I thought that as of that time, that was the only ferry that actually went from Victoria to Seattle as such, although there were and are other ferries from Victoria to other places in Washington that are closer.

[mrbalihai.livejournal.com]

Joyce and I took our rental car on a ferry from Seattle to Victoria right after BAST.BOB, so there definitely was a service back in 1999.

[2wanda.livejournal.com]

I think they probably canceled that ferry service after 9/11.

[matrushkaka.livejournal.com]

When we were in Oregon I saw billboards for this exhibit (http://www.aquarium.org/MastersNight_page1.html) that looked interesting, but we didn't have time to stop.

Did you go to La Casa Gelato in Vancouver??

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Naw, i don't like gelato.

[matrushkaka.livejournal.com]

But they have gorgonzola pear gelato!

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I don't really care for gorgonzola, either.

Maybe i oughta make a post that lists all the foods i won't eat. That should keep everyone in stitches for a while.