Seattle Interlude

Thursday, June 20,2019                

This trip started early since I had a 7:00 a.m. Alaska Airlines nonstop from BWI to Seattle.  I had heard so many good things about them, but other than having connections at the seatback to plug in your electronic devices with USB, and their flight attendants came around with water (“so you can stay hydrated during the flight”) right after takeoff and a couple of times during the five hour cross county flight, it was pretty much like all the airlines these days (Food available for purchase).  The one thing that this flight had that I could have done without was the lady behind me coughing and sneezing all the way across the country!  I hope it doesn't come home to haunt me during my trip.

Thursday had two items on the agenda—a visit to the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field, and seeing the Baltimore Orioles play the Seattle Mariners.  I got to Boeing Field by a combination of the light rail train and the local bus. The museum was good, although similar in many ways to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in DC and their Udvar Hazy annex near Dulles in Virginia.  The one thing that I loved was the building with the historical large aircraft such as the first Boeing 727 and Boeing 747 in their original markeings, a British Airways Concorde (I wonder if it’s one of the ones I flew on when I took a Concorde round trip to London), and the first Boeing 707 used as Air Force One. You could go through all of these planes.  They also had a B-17 and a B-29 of World War II fame, and a triple tailed Lockheed Constellation, my favorite all time propeller airliner. You could not go through these last three planes. 

Then it was off to T-Mobile Park (which I had already been at many years ago when it  was named Safeco Field) for a game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Seattle Mariners.  The roof was open but it turned in to a very cool evening (mid-50’s) and since the Mariners had just scored three runs to go ahead of the Orioles and I was super tired from what amounted to a nearly 24-hour day, I left in the 7^th inning.  The Mariners won 5-2.  One thing I can say is that if instead of having a 20-game plan at Nats Park in DC, I had one at T-Mobile Park, I’d put on 20 lbs. a season due to the great selection of food items around the ballpark.  Any ballpark with garlic fries is ok in my book!

 

 Friday, June 21, 2019

Today was dedicated to knocking off state number 30 in my quest for all 50.  I got up, took the light rail train downtown (about a 40 minute trip) and then walked to the Washington State Ferry Terminal   A 35-minute ferry boat trip got me to Bainbridge Island, where I had reserved a hybrid bicycle from Classic Cycles, about a five minute walk from the ferry dock.  Instead of the $35 hybrid rental, I could have opted for a road bike, but at $75 for the day I decided to take the less expensive route.  That made for a very challenging day.

One thing that Bainbridge Island is not—flat!  Lots of short, steep hills (a few steep ones were not so short).  The extra weight and wide tires on the hybrid (for those who are cyclists, they were 700 x 38!) made it slow going tackling what amounted to almost 75 feet of climbing for every mile.  On several of the hills I found myself 'zipping' along at about 4-6 mph.  For comparison, my average climbing ride around Maryland is just less than half that amount.  

First I went up to the east side of the Island to the north end .  I got some good views of the water at Yeomalt Point and then at the North end where I stopped at the Fay Bainbridge Park.  There were lots of other water views, except almost everywhere on the island there were houses where the occupants got the views to the detriment of those who wanted to see the water from their car.

There was one exception where a view across someone's side yard yielded the Seattle skyline in the background. 

 

After Fay Bainbridge Park on the north end of the island, it was down the west side.  A few small but nice parks. And an interesting piece of "road sculpture."  I stopped at the very attractive small village of Lynnewood, rode all the way to the south end through Fort Ward Park, along a bike path, and then began another series of climbs to eventually make my way back to the “city center” where the ferry leaves from. 

It’s great to have knocked off another state on the list, but riding the heavy hybrid up and down the hills on Bainbridge Island has left me wiped out tonight.  The tour operator has said that our route through Alaska is not exceptionally hilly.  I sure hope not, because six days of hybrid riding are coming up!
Tomorrow the only thing on the agenda is to fly in the afternoon, again on Alaska Airlines to its namesake state.  When I land in Anchorage I will have set foot in all 50 states, and will be just one day from my 32^nd bicycle state.
If you want to see a map and the data (including a profile of the climbing) from today’s ride, you can go to https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/3771226030 .  Or if you normally follow me on Strava, my ride data is there as well.

I don’t anticipate an update tomorrow.  The next post will be Sunday night, but due to the four hour time difference between Alaska and the East Coast, many of you will not get to read it until Monday morning. Thanks for following along.  And now, it’s north to Alaska!

Bruce