We made it

We are taking a break, staying an extra day at a small but nice motel, The Tradewinds, on the Shoalwater Bay Reservation (so small, it's not listed as such on Google maps) in Tokeland, WA. It's located on a little traveled coastal loop south of Seattle. It's also an area that lies low against the Pacific and has many Tsunami Evacuation Route signs. We have been warned that the Native American police, who are the law here, strictly enforce the speed limits. We have carefully obeyed all traffic laws, but it's clear that they are vigilant and active. There is also a small casino nearby that Mike and I went to for its all-you-can-eat Friday buffet. It cost $9.99 each and here are some of the choices: two kinds of crab legs
cold shrimp
fried breaded shrimp
mussels
clams
fried chicken
breaded fish
salad bar
rich cakes and pies
fruit and lots more

Just for a break and the fun of it, we took a ferry out of Seattle, after visiting the famous Pike Street market in the morning ... going partway there on the monorail from the 1962 World's Fair.

Yes, indeed, they throw fresh fish over the counters, as some of you might have seen on one of several TV shows. But what surprised us was all the booths with all the varieties of goods from local berries, beautiful flowers (at hard-to-believe low prices) to ... well, just about anything and everything.

[Note: two things while I remember - I've had to edit my blog entries quite a few times after I've posted an entry because a word I've used is too long to fit in the margin besides the photos. It throws the wrapping of the narration off. Hyphenating does no good as it appears differently on different computer screens. If there's a fix for this, I haven't been able to find it. So my writing is not necessarily what comes naturally, but what fits in the margins. The other thing is that Mike and I just had our first good cup of coffee since crossing the Mississippi. The coffee is just not up to our standards and very rarely is real half-and-half available. It's either a liquid substitute or powdered creamer. Our theory is that that is how Starbucks got started in Seattle. The coffee was so bad that when Starbucks started serving decent coffee, the change was so startling that word of mouth gave them all the momentum they needed to sweep the West and carry through to the rest of the country.]

The ride on the huge ferry, the longest they offer, zigzagged us through Puget Sound and some islands and sea otters and seals (which, sadly, I did not capture on camera). I did get our best pictures yet of Mount Rainier, even though it was about 80 miles away. Just now Mike and I were out on the balcony with the 18x binoculars looking at what must be giant waves on the horizon. It's so hard to tell, but relative to the fishing boats, I'd say they could easily be 20' or more from crest to trough. Probably more, as I was in 16' waves many years ago and these seem so much bigger.

For Mr. Kelly's class:

The picture of Mount Rainier taken from Puget Sound made me think of a math problem that about which Mr. Kelly needs to double check my thinking. Let's suppose you were on a boat at sea level as I was. And let's suppose, as is the case is some awesome places in this world, there were some very tall mountains running steeply down to the water's edge. Suppose you and some friends knew you were about four miles from one of the mountain tops. Now let's say you were at a railing on the boat pointing right at that mountain top and wondering aloud how high that mountain was. Quickly one of your friends, a few feet away from you and also on the railing, looked at you as you were pointing at the mountain top and asking the question. Right away she said, "That mountain is about ____________ above sea level." She was right. How did she know that with only the information given above available to her?