Benjamin and Sherry's West Coast Odyssey Diary: Part 1

Okay.. I admit it... so I didn't write this diary while I was on my trip like I wanted to, but here it is now while it's still fresh in my mind.

Day 1- Whale-Watching in the San Juan Islands (Tuesday, June 13th)

So, remember when I was all worried that something would go wrong on the trip? Well, this was the day that something seriously went wrong. I printed off directions to everything from Yahoo! maps because we got lost a lot on our last trip to Toronto because of the lack of directions :). I also created a binder with all of the reservation information in it. Well-prepared for this vacation, right?

On Tuesday morning, Ben and I followed the directions carefully to the pier from which our whale-watching vessel would sail to the San Juan Islands in Bellingham, WA. When we got to the "welcoming building" at the port, our Great Orca Adventures company was nowhere to be found. I referred to my black binder, only to notice that our whale-watching vessel was not sailing from Bellingham, WA, but from Anacortes, WA (an hour south of where we were standing). You know that sick feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you know that you've made a huge unfixable mistake... yeah, I got that right at that moment.

Lucky for Ben and I, there was a great whale-watching tour ready to depart in 45 minutes from when I realized we were not going to make it to the other tour. I called the tour that we were going to miss, only to get their answering machine. I left an apologetic message, and we promptly bought tickets to the whale-watching tour sailing from Bellingham. I continued to feel really, really, REALLY bad about the Anacortes tour and called them back to talk to an actual person. Needless to say, the man was kind of pissed off at me. "Just so you know, anyone else on the PLANET would not hesitate to charge you the full price of your tickets. But, I'm a nice guy, and I want you to enjoy your vacation and see some whales. Have a nice day!" He wasn't self-rejoicing or anything.. what a butthole. Anyway, Ben and I had a great time, and we saw lots of orcas.




This was our whale-watching vessel, the "Island Commuter". (on the left) This is Ruffles. (on the right) He's a "grandfather" whale and usually travels on his own. His dorsal fin is about six feel tall and is ruffled, hence the name.

More orcas!

After the whole orca adventure/fiasco, Ben and I drove down to Seattle. Since we took a longer whale-watching tour than previously planned, we didn't have time to see the Space Needle that night. We did some exploring while looking for Kurt Cobain's houses. The roads in residential Seattle are CRAZY! They quite literally contain sixty-degree inclines and declines (their roads are very steep). Not only did we drive almost straight up towards the sky or straight down towards the ground, the roads are also very narrow and contain very, very impossibly sharp turns. It looks like people just built houses very close together in random spots on these huge hills, then someone had to connect all of them with roads. After giving up finding Kurt's old house, we found the house at which the murder (yes, murder) took place.

Right next to his house is "Kurt's Park". Just a grassy space in between the so-close-together houses right next to his old house. Both of the benches were covered in messages left by his fans. Too bad Ben didn't have a pen (he'll get a chance to leave Kurt a message later in the trip at Aberdeen, WA). When driving up and down the street looking for his house, we saw a red SUV turning into the driveway. Could it have been Courtney Love?

Next up: Benjamin and Sherry's West Coast Odyssey Diary: Part 2. I promise that I won't drag this out for two weeks. Part 1 just happened to have a lengthy story behind it.