We had a day to do nothing because we are waiting to stay a night at one of the San Juan Islands off the coast of Seattle. I watched a PBS show one day on the San Juan Islands and hoped someday we could go there. See how PBS gets me in trouble? Anyhow, I didn’t think we would have time to visit the island on this trip but all of a sudden Ed reserved a hotel room so we were committed. However, in the meantime, we needed a place to stay before we arrived on the island and there were absolutely no vacancies in or around the Seattle area – very much to our surprise and dismay. Apparently there is a popular art exhibit, air show, sea-fest, and God-Only-Knows what else is in town for the reason of No vacancies in or around the Seattle area. We stopped at quite a few places with “nothing available” before Ed tried the “Let’s just stop one last time routine…” to see if he could get a small room for the night. We got the last room at an Embassy Suites Hotel about 17 miles north of the city. This suite is bigger than my house. It’s incredible. But more important than the size and comfort of the room, we got a room for not only one night but also two nights. This should have been impossible in the Seattle area, but someone was looking out for us. We needed to squander some time before we’re able to get our room on Orcas Island so we went in to the town of Seattle. Wow! The first thing we see is a para-sailor passing by a Norwegian Cruise Ship in the midst of numerous sailboats, a brilliant sapphire sky, and the deep blue sea in the backdrop. We took a walk to the Pike Place Market just for something to do and stroll through the busy shops. I hear a quartet of black men singing a familiar song, acappella, and I suddenly remember that the famous Pike’s Place Fish Market is located in this building. We fight our way through the crowded market, beyond the dazzling, bountiful, fresh flowers for sale … further than the artisans that make their own fine gold and silver jewelry… past the fresh pastry that makes your mouth water just looking at it… down a little further – pushing, shoving, tripping-- and ….there it is …The Famous Pike Place Fish Market. The men working in this booth are world renowned for selling –seafood---huh, you say “seafood” …of all things… how can that be exciting???. They sell fish to the average, every day, patron – and you ask yourself…how could that be thrilling???. Well, to make their work more fun and exciting selling seafood to the average every-day-person, they add a little pizzazz to their work by “throwing fish from behind the counter in to the crowd.” The employee that stands on the outside of the counter by the patrons actually catches the flying fish the other guy throws from behind the counter. These fish weigh about 15 pounds or more – they are not small fish. Then one of the big, burly men yells something out in a baritone voice to his fellow workers and all the other men answer him in their deep sort of military-like chant back at him. There was probably over a hundred people watching them do their work. We all were laughing and observing their little show and everyone was in awe at how much fun the workmen were having “just doing their everyday job.” Ed was laughing at the crowd as well as the performance that was on display before us. He said he couldn’t believe there were so many people there just to watch these men carry out their “job.” It was so much fun. Nobody was buying fish. We were all watching the men at work. They kept prodding us to buy their hundreds of varieties of fish, clams, scampi’s…anything. THEN, all of a sudden a fish comes flying out from behind the counter and the staff member, who was in the midst of the audience, didn’t catch the fish. We all screamed. Then we laughed because we found out it was a fake fish and they do that on purpose to get a rise out of the crowd. That was just too much fun. You have to experience the Pike Place Fish Market.
We then walked over to one of the piers and ate Alaskan halibut at an outside café. The Blue Angels were flying all around us. I was so excited to see the air show I could hardly eat. We got a good walk around town, saw the legendary Seattle Space Needle then got back to our rented mansion where we saw a wedding take place inside the atrium. I felt like yelling “EEEElllaaaiiinnnneee” like Dustin Hoffman did in the Graduate but I refrained. The wedding went forth…
