HollyKing's Journal

I promised to write about my adventure yesterday and so I am…

A few days ago my brother, ragnorokt, was invited to attend a housewarming for a fellow home brewer in Oak Harbor on Whidbey Island. He asked if I would like to come along and having no objections I agreed. If you haven’t been lucky enough to have home brewers for friends or family let me tell you it’s a wonderful thing. They always brew more than they can drink and it’s up to folks like me to help them drink it all. Being a fan of beer I figured I would get to try some great brews and get some food.

We, my brother and I, are planning a trip to Germany and we thought it would be a good idea to stop by Rick Steves' travel store.  After all it’s not far from the ferry terminal in Edmonds, so after a bit of shopping we could hop on the ferry and make our way to the island.  Those of you who live in the Pacific Northwest might have noticed a slight flaw in my plan already, but hold for the fullness of my tale and don’t give it away to the others.

The travel store did not disappoint and while I didn’t learn much about Germany, the staff helped me get an idea of what sort of questions I need to answer for the trip.  As we left I noticed we had a few minutes to make the ferry in Edmonds.  So we rushed a bit and zipped aboard the boat with about a minute to spare.  We weren’t the last car on the the ferry but it was close.  I was actually feeling pretty good about myself as we made the crossing.  It was a beautiful sunny day as we drove along the road and I was having a good time until we passed a sign for Port Townsend.  Port Townsend?  I don’t remember PT being on Whidbey Island.  Nope, it is on the Olympic Peninsula and we had neatly made the wrong ferry.  Gah!  So much for being smug and ahead of the game.

This required a bit of consideration so ragnorokt and I pulled over and checked our maps.  We could turn around, take the ferry back to Edmonds, drive up to Mukilteo, take the ferry there to Whidbey and continue on our journey.  Our other option was to continue on to Port Townsend and take another ferry there across to Keystone, which is on the island, and make our way to the party.  As I mentioned it was a nice day so we chose the second option and drove on.  From prior experience I knew that the Port Townsend/Keystone ferry is small and it can fill up.  My brother got on his phone and tried to make us a reservation, but the web page wasn’t working.  So he got on the phone and worked on getting a reservation.  He was told that if we could make the next ferry there was plenty of room and we wouldn’t have a problem.  As we pulled in to the terminal I asked the woman taking the fares if this boat actually went to Whidbey.  She said yes, and then mentioned we took the wrong boat earlier.  “You must have taken the Edmonds/Kingston ferry,” she said.  I replied that we had to which she replied, “You want the Mukilteo/Clinton ferry.”  Thanks, this was information I could have used an hour ago…  We had a pleasant crossing and then drove up to Oak Harbor without further incident. 

Arriving at the housewarming a bit behind our planned time we joined the festivities in progress.  M & J have a nice home and there was plenty of homebrew to sample.  I wasted no time doing my part to relieve M of his overabundance of full bottles and replace them with empties so he would be able to pursue his hobby and fill them again.  I’m nice like that you know.

Drinking and conversing with the other guests was going well and I was in a good place.  Then I met J & T, a couple who are realtors on Whidbey Island.  We were talking about music and they mentioned going to a shanty concert the night before.  They were trying to tell me about a band they heard and I realized it was Pint and Dale, a local group.  We kept talking about music and were hitting it off when T asked me if I would like to go with them to the second night of the concerts.  Checking with my brother, who gave the ok to leave him at the party, I left with J & T and headed out to the show.

Riding along in the back of their car I realized that I had stepped into a classic horror movie setup.  I’m on an island, it’s dark outside and I’m riding along with a couple of people I met not an hour earlier.  It was quite a thrilling ride.  Was I going to listen to music or was I going to be cleansed in the finest quality spring water, lightly killed, and sealed in a treble milk chocolate envelope, and lovingly frosted with glucose before being fed to Constable Parrot.  As you can see I ended up listening to music as I am still here to tell this tale.

The show started off with the Shifty Sailors, a Whidbey Island group.  They sang songs about whales and whaling.  They were good and very entertaining.  I really liked a couple of the songs and I hope they were on one of the CDs I bought.  During their performance T leaned over to me and asked “What are the odds that you would go to a party and end up at a concert with a couple of strangers?”  Pretty high I guess, as I was sitting next to her at the show.  The next performer was a gentleman named J.W. Sparrow.  There was one great song he sang about a Japanese fishing vessel that had drifted around the ocean for a couple of years before being recovered here.  I will have to find a CD of his with the song so I can research the story more.  Next was the previously mentioned Pint & Dale, a favorite of mine for a few years now.  They did not disappoint in concert and I’m very happy to have seen them.  Finally we had Broadside & Cabin Boys a fun group that I enjoyed.  For some reason they had to shut down the venue at 10pm so all of the groups got back up and performed one last song together.  Then everyone put up their chairs to lend a hand with the cleanup.

J, T and I headed back to the car to head back to the party.  I had left my coat at the party because it wasn’t cold but coming out of the concert it was chilly.  Let me say that finding out that the back seats were also heated was a nice thing.  A nice thing that I enjoyed quite a bit on the drive back.  Back at the party I met up with my brother who had messaged me a few times, but the show was outside of the service area so I wasn’t receiving his messages until then.  It was now about 11pm and I had missed most of the food and the mead tasting, but I didn’t mind.  I scrounged a bit of dinner from the leftovers and talked with other folks at the party while making sure I was sober to drive.

We finally left Oak Harbor about midnight and instead of taking our chances with the Washington State Ferry System again we drove through Deception Pass and made our way back south on I-5.  We finally got home around 2:30am where I thankfully sank into bed and tried to sleep with memories of this day, ferry boats, shanty songs and good beer in my head.  It was…  Quite an evening.

I'll be in Kansas City for a day in the first half of June. Due to the reason I'll be in KC it will be my last visit for quite some time. I'd love to have dinner with friends while I'm there. Let me know if you're interested and I'll keep you updated with my plans.

Flew to San Francisco yesterday. Attended most awesome concert by Transatlantic. Three hours of their music. Scored a ride back to the airport. Missed getting through the security gate by a few minutes. "Slept" on an airport floor for the first time in a long time. (SFO has no benches that don't have arms.) Returned to Seattle. Still jazzed from the show but I go thud now. See you all tomorrow...

I’ve wanted to get back into seeing live music again. I used to go to concerts all the time but life got in the way. So I resolved to get out and see more shows even though it would involve travelling as the people I wanted to see don’t seem to come to my area*. I’ll easily go see someone who performs in Portland or Vancouver BC. A three hour drive for a good show is a minor problem I’m willing to overcome.

The big problem is I don’t deal well when I'm alone in crowds of unknown people. If I have a friend with me I still suffer the anxiety but at a lower level I can handle. Flying off to an unfamiliar city, finding my way alone to a concert venue, attending a show with a huge unknown crowd and making my way back home again is something I never thought I would do. I feel a bit anxious just thinking about it. But Fortes fortuna adiuvat.

I’ve purchased plane tickets and this morning I bought my concert ticket. On the 18th of April I’m going to see Transatlantic at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco!!!

Now to start figuring out how to get around SF and where to have some food. I'm not going to book a hotel as my return flight leaves at 7am and I don't think it's worth it for a few hours I'd get to spend there. That does mean that I'll be travelling light. Good thing I have my Coat of Many Pockets.

*: Sylvan and Porcupine Tree did come and I went to see them both! Thanks guys!

At Noon on Thursday September 3rd I'm going to drive up to Vancouver to attend a meeting from 7-9pm. I don't think, at least I really hope, it won't take seven hours to get there. This leaves me with some time to kill. Drinks anyone?

ranjtheobscure's memorial is on Friday July 3rd. I'm flying to Kansas City on July 2nd (arrive at 7:55pm) and returning to Seattle on July 4th (leaving at 6:30pm). I'll be staying with ragnorokt and coderigger has offered to give me a ride to the memorial. That covers all of the critical stuff.

Seattle People: I would like a ride to the airport at 9:20am on Thursday July 2nd and ride home on July 4th at 11:28pm. I can park in the long-term lot if no one is available, but I'd rather not drive after the flight back or pay for the parking. I'll bake you something or buy you a pint for a ride. :)

Kansas City People: I would like to see you. I know it's a holiday weekend and you all probably have plans but if we can work something out it would lighten the reason for making this trip. Right now I'm available Thursday evening and Saturday morning and afternoon. There is also some Friday before the memorial but coderigger has already claimed me for some of the day. bountifulpots and theslice are you going to be available? verminiusrex, it might be a long shot but it would be great to meet you in person while I'm in the area too. I hope I didn't miss anyone, but if I did accept my humble apologies and thwap me so I remember you.

Right now it’s fairly quiet in our home. cheesentoast is off getting trained for her new job and hollyqueen and I have lots of chores to finish this week. So other than the monthly trivia tonight we’re probably not going to be doing much. That is until Friday.

Friday afternoon my brother, ragnorokt, is flying in for his first visit and the next seven days will be full of activities and adventure. ragnorokt doesn’t even get a break because after we pick him up at the airport we’re heading off to Vancouver for the weekend.

When we come back from Vancouver cheesentoast should be back from her training so all four of us will be sharing our small apartment. But it’s only for a week so I think we’ll all survive.

During the week ragnorokt and I will be spending the days seeing the sights that Seattle and the Puget Sound area has to offer. I know he has a list of things to do, so we’ll probably use that as a guide from day to day. See this is me relaxing and not planning everything ahead of time. :D

I'm at the hotel in Atlanta now. Thanks to a snafu on my second leg of the trip I missed the rehearsal dinner so I'm chillin' a bit before they come get me for fun after dinner.

I posted a bunch of updates via TxtLJ today but I guess I did something wrong as none of them seem to have been added. Oh well... Nothing too exciting anyway.