Day 83-87: Tacoma, Tacoma, Tacoma....

Day 83-85: 6/03/14 - 6/05/14

If I were to title these last few days of my life it would be called "Brian Goes Domestic."

For the most part they went something like this. Joe would be up at 4:00 a.m. for work and I'd lay on the couch somewhere between sleep and wake as Joe got ready and then left. Once he left I would try to get his dog, Roxy, to go back to bed and we would sleep for another few hours. I'd finally get up around 8:00 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. and would make a few cups of coffee and have some oatmeal with honey and bananas. After that I'd clean up the dishes and then do intervals of reading or writing or taking Roxy out for walks and then riding around on my bike exploring the area of Tacoma (making up for the miles missed between Centralia and Tacoma, which I did).

After 80 some-odd days of being on the road and pushing some pretty good miles up until this point it was nice to enjoy this change of pace as I switched to my domestic mode.

Thursday (6/05) was Joe's last day of work for the week and after grabbing some dinner at the house we ventured out to a local bar in Tacoma called Cheers West where we enjoyed some delicious Manny's IPA and got in a few games of darts. This guys still got it! We also got to observe the other "interesting" patrons at the place. Especially Eddie who came and played darts next to us. Let's just say this. No man should be wearing cut-off jeans that are "short shorts" out in public. I don't care who you are. Even you Eddie if you are reading this. Also, if you are a man that may possibly have a pretty effeminate dart throwing form kicking out your foot and all with each toss (cough Eddie cough) you probably shouldn't tell the random people standing next to you playing darts as well that you are "throwing like a girl, today." We knew. We saw. And for some reason I don't think that it was the first day with such a toss.

All in all it was a relaxing and great night catching up.

Day 86: 6/06/14

On Friday morning we woke up and brewed up some coffee and ate some oatmeal and sat around in the morning. Then we drove up to Point Defiance Park which is at the northern tip of Tacoma and only a 4-mile drive from Joe's apartment to check it out and see what it had.

We got to the park and decided to start walking along a nice paved sidewalk that took us right along the water on the Northern side of the peninsula. Easy enough we thought. This was at about 11:30 a.m. After about a half hour the sidewalk ended and it turned into a nice little beach and we kept pushing forward. As we went further and further the terrain started to get sketchier and sketchier and we started seeing less and less footprints in the sand and eventually we didn't see any. Soon enough we were climbing up and over huge trees and branches that were blocking the beach and working pretty damn hard as we kept pushing out around the point (you can see below how the terrain changes as we go).

But, it started getting really fun so I thought. At one point I looked over at Joe as we were climbing up over a massive tree that I felt like we were in an episode of Man vs. Wild or Naked and Afraid or something. Don't worry we weren't naked. I just meant that we were really out in the wild. Joe said back to me that he felt like he was in the middle of an episode of I Shouldn't Be Alive and he wasn't even sure if he'd get on the show because he was still unsure of the status of whether he would live or die out here... ohhh perspective...

Anyways, we ended up going all of the way out around the Point of Point Defiance and walked almost all of the way back down along the southern side. We found a really cool cave up one of the little cliffs that formed the barrier between the park above and the water below, created some pretty nice artwork (pic below), collected some water from water that was trickling down the side of the mountain for some refreshments and then scaled a pretty serious cliff face pulling ourselves up by roots and branches to get back to the main trail that took us back to Joe's truck. We finally got back to it by about 3:45 p.m. Let's just say it was a good days hike. Much more than we had ever expected for right in the middle of Tacoma.... And it was AWESOME!!!!

Day 87: 6/07/14

Saturday we finally got into Seattle! We drove in to SeaTac and then took about a 30 minute ride on the Light Rail that took us right into Downtown Seattle. It was a little weird seeing such a clean and smoothly operating transit system after being in New York City for the last few years....

In Seattle we first went to Pike Place Market, founded in 1907 and the longest continually-run market in the United States. It was a really happening place with so many amazing sights and smells and really amazing artwork and food on display and for sale. We ended up walking all through the market and it's multiple levels and enjoyed quite a few of the free samples that all of the food venders had to offer, especially the apple chips venders. They ended up turning us away after our third trip to try the free samples.. We also walked passed the actual first Starbucks ever opened which happened to be right on the same street as the market and we also saw a unique and pretty disgusting wall of bubblegum.

After the market we walked to the Space Needle and took some pretty awesome selfies underneath it's tower. I don't know if it is the atmosphere created here in Seattle/Tacoma or Joe or some combination of the two but my selfie skills have really blossomed.. There are three gems below...

From the Space Needle we walked down to the water and went to a cool shop called the Ye Olde Curiosity Shop that had some of the most random collections of oddities that I have ever seen... Besides the usual touristy stuff there were shrunken human skulls, bones from whales, all sorts of preserved animals with deformities, two mummified humans, coins from all over the world, old black and white photos from the early days of Seattle and much, much more. A very cool place.

Then before heading home we got some delicious eats at Buckley's in Belltown and caught some of the USA v. Ghana match. Go USA!!!!

Once we got back I pulled the bike out and gave it a little clean and did a serious degreasing job on the bike chain which was very overdue and have been packing up my gear and clothing so that I'll be ready to head out and continue this journey tomorrow morning as sad as it may be to leave the comfort of Tacoma and hanging out with Joe.

It has been a really fantastic break here in Tacoma and I am so happy that I got to spend this extended stay here to catch up with Joe and really get a sense of what this area has to offer... And also just an FYI I spent 2 days in Portland and 8 in Seattle and it hasn't rained once. Not once! I think that we've all been duped by these people out here to keep all outsiders away... I'm just saying I'm on to you Portlanders and Seattlites and actually I'm not even mad. I'm impressed. Very impressed.

Tomorrow I head out going North for the next 2 days en route to Anacortes (which will be my northern most destination). From there I will be turning back East with the long road back towards New York.

Walking my new buddy Roxy