Catching a Fish at Pike Place

Tom and Me at the Game

…It Won’t be Long Now…

We’re over halfway done with the trip so it’s starting to have the feel of “It’s all downhill from here.” We’ve seen so much cool stuff in the past few weeks that it almost seems like a bit of information overload to process it all. We’ll do our best though for the rest of the trip; give it the “ol’ college try.”

We arrived in Seattle late last night and stayed with Brandon. Today we headed downtown to see if the Northwestern was in port (you know what I’m talking about if you watch Deadliest Catch). Unfortunately, it was out to sea so we didn’t get a chance to see it up close. I saw a bunch of other fishing vessels but it just wasn’t the same. Oh well. We also walked around Pike Place Market. It was cool to see them throw the fish when people order it. However, even more amazing than that was how cheap the fresh bouquets were – and they were huge, colorful, and wonderful. Of course, we also saw the Space Needle (didn’t go up in it, but were next to it.)

To wrap up the day, we went to Safeco Field to watch the Tigers play. Despite the fact that they lost, it was still a great night and believe it or not, this was our first game of the season. We got the chance to watch the Tigers take batting practice which is something that you don’t usually get to see at home. Afterward they all went in the dugout except for Joel Zumaya who stopped to sign autographs (I was waiting with a bunch of other people at the top of the dugout.) I yelled to him that I saw his picture at Dos Pesos, the little Mexican restaurant in Belleville that the owner said he frequents (I guess he lives in Belleville) and he looked up and smiled, so that was cool. I seized the opportunity and threw him my Tigers hat and he signed the underside of the bill. So yeah, that was my Tigers story for the evening and it’s pretty cool.

The Mariners have much better between-inning entertainment than the Tigers. It really made the time fly by and the ground crew's little dance was pretty darn entertaining. They do a lot of cool things for the fans and the fans themselves were actually nice, despite the fact that we sported Tigers' garb. As luck happened, we were a couple of seats down from 5 Tigers fans, including an old lady who was ready with her rally cap in the 9th. It's great how people are baseball fans for life.

Tomorrow we’re off to Olympic for 2-3 nights and then it’s down to Crater Lake and the California Coast. I’m not sure what we’re doing in Olympic, but we might try and do some sea kayaking or something a little different from the hiking we’ve been doing everywhere. I’ll be neat to see a different bit of scenery (the Rockies have been great, but we have broader aspirations!)