Searching for Frasier Crane

©2015 Lydia Hinshaw

The market is the place for seafood lovers

A ferry heads out past the market

 SEATTLE -- Our house-sit is less than 10 miles from the ferry docks in Bremerton, WA. From there it's an hour by boat to the ferry docks in Seattle.

 We love ferries, and occasionally we like the chance to visit a big city, provided we can do it without a car and all the hassles of traffic and the expense of parking.

 So Tuesday morning we drove into Bremerton, parked the Magic Bus in a rooftop lot and walked onto a ferry.  Our plan was to see the Pike Street Market, which I've heard about but had never visited.  After that, we'd see what else might be interesting.

 The market is an amazing and endless collection of fresh seafood, fresh produce and almost anything else you can think of in the way of restaurants and shops.  It was also packed with people and just moving up and down among the stalls was difficult.  I was afraid if we got separated we would never find each other again.

 Lunchtime came, and there were long lines to get into the more popular restaurants.  We found it astonishing that there was nearly a block-long line to get into a Starbucks, which is apparently the original, and eating lunch there is a bucket-list item for hordes of tourists.  Not us.  We don't care much for Starbucks, and even if we did, we could surely find one with shorter lines.  There's one on just about every block here.

 We found a seafood place with shorter lines to order at the counter, and the Prince got his chowder and I got my halibut and chips.  The catch:  The restaurant's counters were packed.  Down the hall was a single empty table with just one chair.  We took turns sitting down to eat our lunch, which was tasty enough to make up for the discomfort.

 Refueled, we walked five blocks to board the monorail to head out to the Space Needle.  This is a overrated for the price and the urban scenery.

 I didn't particularly want to go up in the Space Needle, and even if I had, I would have been turned off by the lines.  We did go into the gift shop, where again we were barely able to move amongst the tourists and the tourist paraphernalia.

 So we took the monorail back downtown and hiked back to the ferry docks.  It was late afternoon now, and we joined commuters headed home to Bremerton on the big green and white boat.

 We made it through the day without buying a single T-shirt, though not for want of trying.  Window-shopping downtown, I saw a Frasier Crane shirt with the little graphic of the Seattle skyline that appeared at the beginning of one of my all-time favorite TV shows.

 Alas, all the Frasier shirts in stock were in sizes appropriate for NFL offensive linemen.