Twistedspinster

R says we're CRUISING, not sailing

The Roketman says we're CRUISING, not sailing, but the song doesn't go

Cruising, cruising
Over the bounding main...

The trip so far:

We left from Ontario (California) International Airport on Thursday morning, at O'dark thirty. It was a good thing that R had checked the itinerary the night before-- he had thought the flight left at 9ish! Paranoia serves a useful purpose sometimes.

But an early flight means an early arrival, at least when you land in the same time zone. We got the rental car, and started exploring. Which is much easier when you're with a rocket scientist, because then you have a Garmin GPS thingie where you can look up Coffee! Whooda thunk that in Seattle breakfast would be hard to find. Mighta been that we chose the one highway along the waterfront where there wasn't much to be found. Who knows.

We found coffee, and a bit of breakfast, and a plan. The Space Needle!! but of course.

We used the Garmin to navigate to the SN, which was rather trick because I was navigating by sightline (SN is rather easy to spot, btw), and R wanted to use the GPS, and then we traded signals... suffice it to say that we only made a couple or five wrong turns before finding the entrance.

The SN is rather pricey-- they want a $30 minimum on meals for the table. ohhhkay. Then we had to wait half an hour for a table... but the view made it all worthwhile! I got a Yarn Harlot-inspired picture of the gansey in progress.

After the SN, we headed up to Burlington, WA to the hotel-- a Holiday Inn Express that was very nice, even if it was 15 miles outside of Anacortes. Dinner was in Anacortes, at the Rockfish Grill-- a portobello mushroom sandwich for me, some halibut for Mike, and some Moose Drool beer. mmm!

Friday morning was a kickback day, since we couldn' check out the boat until 4 (Mike booked the airline tickets when he thought we needed to be there at 1). I got to go to Not Just Yarn, got the latest Knitter's magazine and some Skacel lace circulars, thinking they will help me win the Summer of Socks. (snork)

We got into the boat at 4, the Ruby Princess, and got to sleep aboard. I slept like a log- it reminds me of a water bed!

We picked up Skipper Terry at 9 from the Friday Harbor ferry, and got underway relatively soon... and yikes- they gave me the helm! It's so not like a car-- you don't just point at the horizon and go. Think of a two-lane undivided highway. You see a semi-truck coming at you, and as soon as it passes, you need to turn perpendicular so his wake doesn't send you wobbling like a rubber duck in a 3 year old's bathtub!

We came through fine - well, except for the fact that I expected to cook for lunch and we couldn't do that while under way. We made do with mozarella sticks, peanuts, and bread and butter. I'm not going to convince anyone I'm a good cook that way, am I?

posted by Ruth S. @ 7:51 AM