First day is the travel day

Posted at http://markandjoannatravel.blogspot.com

Day 1
August 22, 2009

All vacations start out with a travel day. Our travel today was smooth and uneventful.

Our flight from Houston to Seattle was on time and even arrived 25 minutes early. Our luggage all arrived with no problems. We were a little curious how the backpacks would fair in the checked luggage. We used large duffel bags made to cover up backpacks for airline travel.

Lucky for us, Seattle just opened a brand new light rail transit from the airport (via a connector bus) to downtown. The light rail was easy and arrived in downtown only 2 blocks from the Avis rental car place.

After we rented the car, we ran a few errands like going to REI for stove fuel and home depot for Mark's hiking stick, and then boarded the Bainbridge Ferry to leave Seattle.

The ferry was rather interesting. I can't even estimate how many cars were fit on there in multiple levels. Then, we left the car and walked around the rest of the ferry for the 30 minute trip. The ferry featured itself as a free gym included as it measured laps for walking and encouraged passengers to use the stairs more than once for exercise.

We arrived in Bainbridge, and on the way to Port Townsend and our bed and breakfast for the night stopped at a local grill for a yummy steak and potatoes meal. The funny thing was we had to pass by multiple mexican food restaurants and a couple fast food joints before we finally found a place to eat.

Now we are at our bed and breakfast and headed to bed. The weather here is cool during the day and chilly at night. It is a nice change from the humid 100 degree Houston heat.

Tomorrow we will get ready for our backpacking trip and go whale watching in the Pugent Sound.

Good night.