Arrival in Seattle Area and Boat Lock Tour

Saturday, June 22, 2017

Arrived today in Issaquah about 17 miles east of Seattle.  Left behind the trees and shade of our last campground for a place in the sun.  Not sure which is better.  I dislike  living in the dark when staying in the forests, but like the coolness.  Weather here is definitely warmer and being in the sun means turning on the A/C to keep the RV and us cool. 

We took some lesser traveled roads (or so we thought) today rather than taking I-5 which takes you into downtown Seattle.  It was a short drive (about 90 miles) and roads were mostly four lanes all the way and through the mountains and trees.  Traffic wise, it was a bit better than I-5 but still had many stop and go places along the way.  This area is certainly much more congested than I thought it would be and I am not anxious to come this way again soon.  Love the area but hate the traffic.

Sunday, June 23, 2017

Argosy Lock Boat Tour

This morning we drove ourselves into downtown Seattle to take the Lock Boat Cruise.  Traffic was not too bad until we reached the waterfront.  I spied a parking lot just after we reached the waterfront and Ron turned in thinking even though he thought we could find something closer.  Our first shock of the day was the cost of parking for 3- 10 hours ($30.00).  Wow! Wow!  Guess you have to be a millionaire to live here and pay those prices all the time.  As it turns out our parking lot was just across the street from the Pier where we would be leaving.  Hurray for that.

We had about two hours to kill before the cruise began and spent it walking up and down the waterfront enjoying the sites and anticipating our trip.  

Though our trip was not until 12:45 with line up supposedly starting at 12:25, they announced where the line was going to be about 11:55 and people began lining up right away.  Since we knew we wanted to be in the front and outside on the boat, we decided to get in line too.  A young couple and their 11 year old daughter lined up behind us and we had a nice conversation while waiting so time passed quickly.

Boarding the boat, we walked up the inside stairs to the top front outside deck where we found chairs giving us a nice view.  We left on time with the captain of the boat, a bar tender/snack person and a female crew member in charge of untying/tying us to the dock and giving us a wonderful almost continuous commentary for the two hour trip.  She was very, very informative and very up to date on things going on in the city and harbor.  A delight to listen to and we enjoy her humor along the way as well.

Rather than much commentary, I am just going to include pictures.  I will say that our crew member did point out where Fraser’s apartment house was, the floating house for “Sleepless in Seattle” , and numerous other interesting sites we were passing along the water.  Of course, we saw several large cruise ships waiting at the docks, many commercial boats and many, many pleasure boats of all sizes and shapes.  

How about this cute fellow?

The picture below shows two bridges and our crew member asked us to figure out which bridge comes first.  See if you can guess. Hard to tell isn't it.  It was for us too.   Answer at the end.  

  

The highlight of the cruise was going through “Ballard Lock”.  Yes, there is a community in Seattle called Ballard where this lock is located. There is a bridge as well.

 Our captain gave us commentary regarding who has priority going through the locks, etc and giving us information about how the lock works.  At this lock there is actually a large and small lock.  We watch while the pleasure boats go into the large lock where there can be up to 100 boats in the lock at one time.  Amazing. 

We have the right of way into the small lock and are soon locked in and watching as the water rises and takes us to the Lake level.  Interesting process.  The number of feet that a boat rises here depends on the time of year and the tide height at the time the boat enters the lock.  It can be anywhere from 8 to 24 feet.  What a beautiful view of the city and the space needle in Lake Union.  

Something interesting I learned at this point in our cruise.  Lake Union is fresh water as opposed to Elliott Bay being salt.   I grew up on both coasts of this country and my family had boats which we took out of the water in the fall and put in in the spring.  During the winter, my Dad spent many winter weekends scraping barnacles off the bottom of the boat while it was in dry dock  Barnacles are little crustaceans’ that attach themselves to docks, pilings, boat bottoms, etc.   What we learned on our trip was that boat owners here bring their boats into the fresh water lake because barnacles will release from boat bottoms saving the owners lots of work.  Wish we had had fresh water near where I lived. 

We  pass under one last bridge before arriving at the dock and wonder if we really will fit.  Yes, but they have to lower the flag and the antenna on the top of our boat. Whew! 

It is in this area that we see the house boat from Sleepless in Seattle.  Arriving at the dock, we are met by two buses which take us back to the waterfront where we began. 

  

A wonderful boat trip.  (Answer regarding bridges.  The blue bridge is first.)

What a cute picture this is.