With an 'iffy' weather forecast for the weekend, we thought this was the weekend.
I hadn't given it that much thought as to how we'd get there, but Jodi suggested 'let's walk!!'. I countered with my best argument, sure to shoot the thought down. "It's 7 miles away", I said, confident that would be the end of it.
Jodi brightened and said "That's perfect"!
7 miles is a nice, average hike for us when we hit the mountains, but it sounds so far in the city. But 7 miles is 7 miles, so we hit the 'trail' on Saturday morning.
The walk itself is a great walk. From Shilshole we headed towards Ballard, then walked the length of Ballard Avenue to the Ballard Bridge. Nestled near the North end of the bridge we saw a new establishment called 'Pono Ranch', which looked interesting. Nestled in the industrial part of Ballard it was a unique cafe with a great outside space.
We crossed the near 100 year old bridge (it was built in 1917) and got a nice view of fisherman's wharf.
From there we headed south on 15th and found a pretty cool community 'pea patch' operation then poked our noses into 2 of Seattle's new distilleries. Sound distillery and batch 206. We met the distiller at batch 206 and he gave us a quick tour of the facility. They make a couple of gins, a vodka, and are making bourbon just as fast as they can (which isn't very fast given the aging requirements).
The park has separate bike lanes and pedestrian paths and even on this gray day made for a beautiful walk. The paths go under the grain elevator and an old freighter had just docked to take on grain.
The park ends at Pier 70 with an abrupt transition from a peaceful shore walk to the hustle and bustle of downtown. We walked around pier 70 then on to Bell Street Harbor where the winter tenants have about a month before they need to give up their dock space for summer transitional moorage. We've met one of the liveaboards there and they spend the Fall and winter months at the dock with sporadic trips and during the summer they roam the sound or go north and come back in the Fall to their downtown moorage.
After Bell Street the elevation gain kicks in. Up the stairs to Western, then up the steep grade to first avenue where the B&B is located.
The B&B was comfortable, but nothing super special. The rooms were fairly small with shared bathrooms. They had a large common room with decent views of the harbor. For our weekend adventure, it was perfect.
After settling in and a shower, we went down to the Market. Packed on this Saturday afternoon. Athena was our first stop. Located in the Market it has a view of the sound. We watched a Hanjin Container ship come into Elliott Bay. The ship was loaded with containers and two tugs met it as it slowed. With one tug at the stern and another at the bow, they pushed and assisted a 90 degree port turn lining up the container ship to the wharf. It would be interesting to observe the dynamics of the port pilot, the ships captain, and the two tug captains as they dock a 1,000 foot ship.
After Athena we went to 'Place Pigalle' for mussels. Long ago a brothel, 'Place Pigalle' is an intimate part of the Market for us. Their small bowl of mussels is usually excellent, although on this visit they fell a little shy as the mussels weren't piping hot.
For our meal we ended up at Lecosho, co-owned by a gal who had il Naso over in Sun Valley. We had Sardines on Toast, oysters, and Lentils with home made pork sausage. Excellent. The evening was wrapped up at new wine bar up on 5th.
A pretty civilized way to backpack from Shilshole.
The morning started with the second 'B' and B&B then again back to the Market for a stronger cup of coffee at Starbucks first store.
We debated whether to call a cab, take a bus or call for a car service, but decided to simply start walking. We took a slightly different route back through Seattle and then again dropped down to the water.
On the reverse trip we crossed the Ballard Bridge just before it opened. It's amazing how utterly quiet the bridge is as it opens. Nearly 100 years and apparently still working flawlessly.
We took a closer look at 'Pono Ranch' and will definitely come back.
We had lunch at the Ballard Market then just couldn't pass up going into the Noble Fir. Ellen was hosting a fundraiser in honor of her mother who had passed away one year ago. They had established a memorial fund to help cancer patients as her mother had volunteered by driving cancer patients to and from their doctor visits. The fund will help that legacy continue and several local pubs and donated their daily profits to the fund.
Ellen's father was there and I asked him how he felt when his daughter, who was a lawyer, decided to open up a pub. He laughed and said 'well, there goes a $100,000 law degree!'. As it turns out, he had retired from his profession and opened up a pub in Arizona, so it must run the family.
Rick, Ellen's husband, worked at REI and both of them love the outdoors. If you could turn REI into a pub, it would look like the 'Noble Fir'.
Rick and Ellen have a gem with the 'Noble Fir' and while we were there we went back to their library and perused some books on coast hikes for another, somewhat less civilized, backpacking trip we have planned.
As we neared the boat, Jodi was going to cook dinner, but we just couldn't walk by Rays. We ended up there and split a Salmon dinner.
What a fun weekend. Including walking around the Market area, we figure we put in close to 20 miles, all on foot, most of it carrying a backpack. Definitely going to do that again, perhaps up on Queen Anne Hill next time.
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