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July 12, 2005
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
One of the things that you've got to love about traveling to islands in the Pacific Northwest is the number of hours it takes just to figure out how to get there... and that's long before you spend the hours actually getting there. [For those of you planning trips to more exotic overseas locations, remember it's all relative.]
The Friday Harbor live cam:
On this end, there are the usual fun questions to ponder:
--Get a parking ticket, or sweet-talk someone into moving the car on street cleaning day? Better yet, does anyone want to borrow the car while I'm gone?
--What would I have to do to get someone to drive me to the airport, and is it worth it?
--Since the answer to part B of the above question is usually No, should I buy a more expensive ticket from the BART-friendly SFO, or schlepp all the way to OAK?
As often happens, I just opted for OAK so I can fly Southwest, just because I think they're fab. How to get there has yet to be resolved.
In Washington:
--Should I take the float plane, which is spendy and fun and potentially a show-stopper (they won't fly in fog) and involves a complicated word problem (if the first flight arrives at x o'clock, and the shuttle to Lake Union leaves Sea-Tac on the hour and takes 35 minutes, which flight will I be able to catch)?
--should I take the other "shuttle," which involves countless hours on a bus from Sea-Tac that drives onto the ferry to San Juan, and never seems to operate at hours that make sense for anyone's schedule?
In previous chapters of life, when time was plentiful and money less so, I would always opt for the cheapest, most circuitous, adventurous and scenic route. To get to Salt Spring Island, this involved not only the plane ride but a combination of busses, ferries, hitchhiking, fishing boats, and frequently missing a return flight due to screwing up somewhere along the line.
Now that The Job fills most of my time and vacation days must be rationed carefully, I need to trim the journey:destination ratio. And since there is theoretically a paycheck (I say "theoretical" because I have yet to receive one after more than a month as an official employee), priorities have shifted somewhat. Float Plane it is, and praying for clear weather.
Once I have arrived in the land of Boats, Bald Eagles, and Brother, the dilemmas are even more exciting:
--For dinner, do we eat salmon from Adam's fisherman friend (Exhibit A, below), or oysters and clams collected from the beach (Exhibit B)?
Exhibit A
Exhibit B
--Do we attempt go totally overboard on modes of transportation (adding two more ferries, a bus or hitchhiking leg, and a customs and immigration station in each direction) to visit mom and dad on Salt Spring?
Aaaaaahhhhh, when questions like this are on the table, life must be good.
Posted by Elizabeth at July 12, 2005 07:56 AM