The bike

A couple of entries I wrote and typed up later
June 21, 2008

In these last 2 days, I managed to not crash the car and returned it back to the airport.

So, continuing on from the last entry; The first night in the tent went pretty smoothly, though the crows here don't know when to shut up. My mission for the day was to buy a bicycle for my twelve mile commute to work. After seeing the current market price for a bike, I opted for one on Craigslist. This website is great, stuff changes hands in a matter of hours and everyone walks away happy. Bikes were in high demand on Craigslist, after a bunch of emails, I was finally able to get a seller on the phone for a ten-speed woman's road bike, perfect.

Me: "I can come pick it up right now."
Seller: "It's a hot item, I've got someone coming at 4:30 for it... tell ya what, I'll sell it to you if you get here first, I'm right behind the Salmon Bay Cafe."
Me: "alllright... " (tough luck to the first guy) "what's your name?"
Seller: "I'm Tiny."
"Hi Tiny, are you like a really huge guy or something?"
Tiny: " haha no, I'm tiny... well, medium sized."
see now it just makes no sense, why would you call a medium sized guy tiny?

Thinking Tiny was going to promise the bike to yet another person, I rushed to Ballard, a southern district of Seattle, surrounded by water. I planned on getting the bike and heading home, but the town looked way too interesting not to stop. It was like a time warp to the fifties, with vintage cars and antiquated buildings in every corner.

Tiny was already waiting at the Salmon Bay Cafe when I pulled in. He was in fact a tiny guy with a not so tiny beard. Tiny worked as a small time mechanic who liked to fix up bikes with his spare time. The bike, a high-tech road bike in my mind, turned out to be as ancient as the town. It had a curvy steel frame with raised handle bars that angled toward me, a cushy seat and original orange paint. I was in love! It was way better than any bike I could have pictured. I'm going to name it Nelly, because this type of bike is called a High Nelly. Tiny pointed me to the direction of the beach. With my new, old bike, I rode to the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, located between Lake Union and the salty waters of Puget Sound. I took lots of pictures.

I decided to spend one more night in the tent and played some guitar.

My beloved car got turned in this morning, I took a bus to downtown Seattle for the day. A popular tourist destination is the Pike Place Market, with fresh seafood, flowers and talent. The big crowd pleaser was the Pike Place Fish Market, with all their seafood on ice trays around the cash counter. To weigh stuff, workers had to throw it to the counter, salmon, crabs, they threw everything, and always with a holler. I had to walk away before impulsively buying a full sized salmon.

I'm sitting at the water's edge by Pike Pl. right now. You can spend all day watching the ships, birds and mountains. That's what I really like about the greater Seattle area, you can be driving down the most random suburb and suddenly a view of snow covered mountains will appear in front of you. The place also managed to preserve its humanity regardless of the size of the city. People say "hello and how are you." There's a hippy jam session behind me and a guy with a dinosaur mask just walked by waving to people. Don't get me wrong, there are also a lot of creeps around too. All in all though, I'm really going to like it here.