This is the second day of our trip to Alaska. We arrived late last night, and we had set aside the day for looking around Seattle, a city that Jane has never seen and I have never spent any time in. We didn’t have any plans or reservations, but Jane and her mother had an idea about the sorts of places they might want to visit so she found a rental car website, Priceline, to help me find a rental car. The rental car company I chose was not a national one. It was called Fox and was located at the airport. We could have taken a free shuttle from the hotel to the airport, but that would have delayed us by who knows how much, based on our experience the evening prior. So we decided to call an Uber. I haven’t used Uber in ages and, so I had to load the app and look up my password. But we had a ride within a few minutes, and he took us right to the rental car facility rather than to the airport, where we would have had to pick up another shuttle to the rental facility. That was great. When I agreed to use that rental agency online, I had signed up for a Kia Rio, but they didn’t have any, so I got a small SUV, which was OK. It was still pretty cheap and, for the day, only $100 plus gas. I paid for the insurance, although I’ve read that it’s not necessary if you already have auto insurance (Who doesn’t?). Anyway, with my cold, I wasn’t feeling very well, and Jane volunteered to drive, and I appreciated that very much.
Jane was anxious to get going and see some of Seattle. Too anxious. She was already exiting the garage while simultaneously trying to connect her phone to the car’s power. Jane and Mom (Emily) wanted to start at Pike Place Market and see a fish throwing exhibition. Pike Place is one of the oldest public markets in the country. According to Wikipedia, it’s a tourist destination with 20 million visitors annually and is famous for a fish seller with a “hook.” The hook is: when a buyer purchases a fish, an employee takes it out of the ice and throws it to a fellow behind the counter. That fellow prepares it for sale (guts it) and throws it back to the first fellow. A show is made of it, and people gather and wait for the next sale to result in a “fish throw.”
Jane’s mother was sitting in the front seat of the rental with Jane and was supposed to be helping her navigate, but Jane’s mother doesn’t understand Google Maps, so I had to help with navigation from the back seat. I got us started off on the wrong foot, being a lousy follow-the-nose navigator. I directed Jane to head in the direction opposite our goal. Google Maps was no help and made us continue for 10 miles before having us retrace our steps. On the other hand, Jane got a look at the mainland US’s largest volcano, Mt Ranier. Still, we got to the market early enough to find decent parking. The market spans several city blocks, according to the map on Wikipedia. It’s built on a bluff at the edge of Puget Sound and has four levels. I had told Jane she could walk around all she wanted, and I would find a quiet place to sit and sip coffee since I wasn’t feeling well. But I wanted to see the fish thrower too, and it took us a while to find that stall. We waited around, but not much happened. To move things along, I decided to buy a fish myself. Not in a position to take immediate possession of a fish, I ordered a salmon that hadn’t been caught yet and could be mailed to Ohio. I asked that it be filleted (not sent whole). It was an especially high-end salmon to be caught in a river whose name I don’t even remember (Copper?) and never heard of. It ended up being quite expensive, over $450. But it’s likely to feed quite a few people, I think, based on the size of a sample I saw on ice. I told Jane that a sweet-smelling rose-pink fish would be her mother’s day bouquet this year.
Looked around some more, then started looking for a place to eat. Found a fish and chips eatery across the street from Pike Place Market and had a decent lunch. It turns out that the site was the first Starbuck’s in 1970. By this time, I was exhausted and wanted to move on. We thought it would be good to head back toward the airport and maybe get a good picture of Mt Ranier. We drove and drove, but could not find a place to park for the picture we wanted. It turns out that the best picture we could get without driving two more hours toward the mountain was one that I had already taken of the mountain from Pike Place Market. We stopped at a store for supplies and at KFC for a supper we could reheat and eat at the hotel, then headed back to the airport. Took a shuttle to the terminal and picked up the hotel shuttle for a free ride back to the hotel. That was the end of day 2 of our Alaska adventure.
We stayed at a Country Inn and Suites by Radisson. It was clean enough, but pretty generic in design. The staff tried to be helpful but had trouble recognizing that there were three of us when we asked them to book a shuttle to the port. They served a hot breakfast that was a little better than what I’m used to. I would give the hotel a grade of C, average.
