Going Home
Seattle/Tacoma/Bellevue has basically become another Los Angeles. The traffic is absolutely horrible. You’ve got two interstates criss-crossing Seattle (I-5 and I-90), and Lake Washington in between Sea-town and Bellevue and all the related traffic from Microsoft-purchased suburbia. Let’s see: Two bodies of water, two interstates, no complete beltway...Shake once and mix with rain and fog = MIND NUMBING traffic jams. Load up on your podcasts or bring 4-6 of your favorite CDs if you plan to drive I-5 or 405 through Seattle/Bellevue in the “rush” hour. If you want to struggle a few days and insist on visiting Pike Place Market and the U Dub campus, more power to you, but my advice is to give it a pass if you can. If you drive up I-5 two hours and take a ferry trip out of Mukilteo (about half way between Seattle and Bellingham), you get to a particularly nice part of the Puget Sound.
The Straits of Juan de Fuca (above) as seen from one of the US islands. If there is one place to visit before you grow old, it’s the San Juan Islands – where you can view an unimaginable variety of marine life ranging from sea lions to orca whales.
At Fidalgo, one of the largest ones, you can head down to the west side outside of Deception Pass to Rosario Beach and check out all sorts of interesting stuff hanging out in tide pools, like this baby crab (above).
Of course, its illegal to capture baby crabs according to Washington law (and probably the law of most states). But if you are a recreational crabber, you can still pick up some of these suckers – full, adult male Dungeness crabs (above), about 1.5-2 pounds each – named after the Dungeness Spit at the tip of the Olympic Peninsula.
These ones were fighting each other after we put them in some trays, with the big guy trying to take out the one near the bottom (above). These suckers are cannibalistic – if they don’t eat after a while, they will attack each other in order to survive.
Start your crab pot boiling early – like 2 hours early. Add your crab boil spices. Put these guys in and boil them for 20 minutes. The sweet meat is in the legs but there is also some good stuff in the shoulders. Serve with butter dip (mix with chicken broth so it doesn’t solidify), or just eat these guys plain if you like them. Cold crab is EXCELLENT for breakfast.
You talking to me? You’re not so feisty now are you? But you sure are tasty (mmm.. above). If it was up to me, I would much rather eat Dungeness crabs than King Crab legs.
On Orcas Island, tons of baby jellyfish float near the docks (above).
One of the most enjoyable things you can do is take a kayak (this one is an inflatable - above) out into the bays, like we did at Deception Pass. Not unlike San Diego, Sea-town and its environs has a strong military presence which has much to do with its strategic location. The Boeing home base between Seattle and Tacoma is pretty darn big.
In fact, this is an old bunker near the sea that harkens back to the days when there actually were tensions between the US and England. As you can see, we maintain this bunker to this day in case Tony and his buddies stop being our poodles and get uppity. Speaking of Her Majesty’s influence, I got my usual fill of BBC radio and CBC TV emanating from Vancouver. Gosh it was nice to watch classic clips of Mr. Bean again.
Ahhh, and you really can’t beat that sunset:
The Comments
Mr. Wilson October 2, 2006 at 7:25am
Nice photos, T! Thanks for sharing.