I'm lucky: I have family AND friends in the Seattle area. One of my dear friends lives on Bainbridge Island in a house that's been in her family for three generations. We scored an invite and got to experience Seattle ferry traffic on a Saturday. She warned us but WOW! The ferries are huge and we still had to wait nearly 2 hours for our turn. My father did the crazy dad thing and let us go ahead as pedestrians while he waited in a packed parking lot full to the brim of hedged in cars waiting for the ferry. No turning back now! Even as pedestrians, we had to wait a while but once on the water the boredom was easy to forget. All was made especially easy since I never have to carry anything because I always have pockets. This day I wanted to dress up a little so I opted for the Jacqui collection in bleached white with my yellow print skirt and white t-shirt. Very summery!
The ferry offers a beautiful view of Seattle even while inside!
Once on the island, it's an easy walk into town from the ferry terminal. Crowds of weekend revelers joined us on the few minute walk to the cute downtown shopping area. There we meandered, had coffee and a cookie at a coffee kiosk called Coquette Bake Shop which had (again) delicious coffee and even better pastries, shopped and then jumped in the car (when it and my dad finally made it over on the ferry) to meet up with my friends. We took a beautiful stroll on her property and visited her Dad's workshop.
My dear friend's dad, Dick Strom, is an iron worker and an artist and makes incredible sculptures from recognizable scrap metal. Check out his work here.
Back on the Seattle side we were ready for some city sights. Edmonds is a beautiful place to stay to be near everything...but not too near.
We had been to downtown Seattle before and so had seen the iconic Space Needle and a smattering of museums and tours all of which were wonderful but did not require a revisit. After the great pause, however, I needed to shop so we took in the Pike Place Market.
Pike Place Market always alive with buskers and other fun things to see and hear.
All natural dyed yarn by @mj_yarns
Once you leave Pike Place Market and head toward the waterfront you must set aside all notions of looking like you blend in and just drink the drought of tourism. If you have to do it, just jump in with both feet. We oohed and ahhed over the wall of gum like folks lined up for the Mona Lisa.
The waterfront hosts all sorts of amusement park rides and carnival type food all of which was dubious in it's very nature before a worldwide pandemic. Like all amusement parks, I prefer to opt out BUT we did walk down to Wings Over Washington which was actually really fun.
Thank goodness for these pockets! There was no place to store our extra things and women's purses were falling out of the tiny basket under our feet on Wings Over Washington. My credit cards, cash, phone, tickets, (I was wearing my mask) even my lip balm were safe in my pockets. I almost lost a shoe, however.
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