I’ve been extremely adverse to schedules on vacation lately. Likely because my day-to-day life is so scheduled and I want a freaking break from it. On Sunday night Carrie W (not the Carrie we spent Sunday with but the Carrie we spent Saturday night with… confusing, I know) text to coordinate our plans for Monday, because she was spending the day with us. We knew we were riding the ferry to Bainbridge Island to see the Thomas Dambo troll there, but had no idea when we’d be going. Carrie asked if she should aim for around 10:00 and I said sure – but to check in with us before she left her house in case we got involved with something. 10:00 is late in the morning, especially when your body is still kind of on central time in you’re in pacific time, but I just didn’t want to be held to any schedule! Maybe that’s something to unpack in therapy. Anyway. I’m grateful everyone was accommodating to me on this.
All that to say, we sat around a bit Monday morning painting, then decided to get breakfast at Wayward Vegan. Their coffee options were lacking, so we went to (local) Turtle Coffee first, then ubered to Wayward Vegan. Carrie met us there for breakfast, and was our driver for the day. So kind of her! (And for her to take the day off work to hang with us.)
I get super overwhelmed when an entire menu is vegan! I’m used to scanning for a few options, not every item being an option. My go-to for breakfast is almost always a skillet, but when I saw Wayward Vegan had a vegan eggs benedict, I had to try it and see if it was anything like the real thing.
Not super close, but still tasty!
So our main goal for the day was to see the Dambo troll on Bainbridge Island, but we saw there was another troll nearby in Ballard, so we visited that one before making our way to the ferry (there are actually 5 trolls in the Seattle area!).
We also realized we were nearby the vegan donut place my snis had found, but it was closed. But then she found another so we stopped there and got some donuts to try!
Then we made our way to the ferry. Ha. I’m not sure how to explain this adventure. The ferry entrance is just south of Pike Place Market. It’s pretty busy on a Monday. We were either going to make the 12:25 ferry or have to wait until 1:10. We were so close to the ferry – like we could see it – but we weren’t allowed to turn right to get to it. GPS wanted us to go many blocks past it, then come back, and make a left turn to go there, well past the 12:25 time. Silly, right? Did I mention it was like 12:22?
So we followed that then said screw it and did a legal u-turn and cut a ton of time off and made the ferry. Woo hoo!
I’ve taken cars on ferries twice before (Madeline Island, WI & Cassville, IA) and it’s always such a fun adventure. We parked, took in the view, then sampled a bunch of the donuts. The raspberry and twist were my favorite!
When we got to the island, we went right to the troll. They’re always so cool to see in person!
Then we went back downtown to spend time browsing and shopping. My snis had heard how cute this town was, with great shops, from several people, and we were excited to check it out! I bought several gifts, and had a delicious vanilla chai!
We went to a bookstore and Snis and I learned Kristin Hannah is a (parttime) local resident! That was fun. We sent a pic to mom since we recently read The Women together.
I think we took the 5:45 ferry back? Leaving the area around the ferry was just as silly but we did the U-turn trick again to get out of there.
Carrie dropped us all off, and Tiff hung out at the house while Snis, Val, and I went to get ramen then to Neko Cat Cafe! Because for all I said at the beginning of this about being anti-schedule, I remembered there was a Neko Cat Cafe (OMG THEIR INSTA IS HILARIOUS) in Seattle and when Val and Snis said they’d go with me at breakfast I immediately booked three slots for 8:00 pm then spent most of the afternoon worrying about schedule. Good job, Kim.
THE CAFE WAS SO CUTE. I think I squealed when I walked in and immediately saw a sweatshirt I HAD TO BUY. We loved our 45 minutes of cat time with those sweet bebes!
After the cafe it was back to the Airbnb for a bit of chatting and painting before bed!
Folks, these posts are so transactional in the interest of trying to keep them short. I’m leaving out so many little details and stories. Like:
- Val braiding my hair Sunday and Monday morning
- All the fun conversations and jokes and just in general what an amazing time it was
- Us not knowing where TF to go once we paid for the ferry and the workers not being particularly helpful
- Me saying how Val lives “so much closer to the sun” (and that is why she felt so cold in Seattle (Tiff did too – she’s from LA)) and then being teased for it the rest of the trip (loved it, ha)
- The parking lot to the park by the second troll being under construction and Carrie worrying very much about where she could legally park and me realizing I am not as big of a rule follower as I thought when it’s someone else’s car, ha
- Me asking a store owner if a romance by a local author is “open door” then them asking what that means and me telling Val to explain it because Steven called right at that time and I wanted to take his call. Ha ha ha ha ha. I wonder what she told him!
- A hilarious encounter at the book store on Bainbridge Island that will get its own blog post
- Snis saying how she had such a hard time driving at night in the rain Saturday night then me struggling with it big time Monday night (I drove us to dinner/the cat cafe) and realizing it was (mostly) the horrendous windshield wipers. I can’t believe Snis drove in that for FOUR hours.
- Snis getting vegan ramen she didn’t order. Oops! (they fixed it, but they did ask “did you touch it?” and she said no, then the waiter walked away saying “we aren’t going to reserve it” and we were all wondering WHAT they were going to do with it then?)
- The person who completely bit it and hurt their back and head when they walked into the cat cafe 🙁 So, so horrible.
- AHH! I almost forgot the most hilarious thing! When we were walking to get ramen, Snis goes “it smells like Taco Bell” then someone nearby said “You look like Taco Bell!” She said “rude!” (while laughing)
There were just so many laughs and “wtfs?” and good memories on this trip!
