Forests and Ferries – Post 6 of our August Seattle trip

John loves ferries. He’s been joyriding them, every day since we got here. Luckily it’s only $5 to get from Fauntleroy, where we are staying, to Vashon Island and back. Everyone else in Seattle plops down $5 every morning for coffee; John goes and rides the ferry.

Our first morning I just wanted to rest from our travels, so John took Biska and rode the ferry himself. Some kind stranger took this picture:

Biska is completely comfortable on the ferry.

That afternoon we walked to the amazing Fauntleroy park, just a couple of blocks from where we’re staying.

The next morning – yep, the ferry again. This time I agreed to go.

We just walked on – it’s easier than taking a car on. Sometimes the wait can be quite long for the vehicles.

And we’re off!

Typical Seattle weather.

Here we are approaching Vashon Island.

The dock lowers to the level of the ferry and they cleat (attach) the ferry to the dock with lines (ropes) just like any other boat.

The bicyclists and pedestrians disembark first, then the cars.

Vashon Island is rural-residential, with only one café down by the terminal.

We walked uphill past all the cars waiting to get onto the next ferry. They waited in a single, snaking line that disappeared up the hill. We turned onto a side street to continue our walk, and passed a woman hurrying down the hill. She greeted us with a playful, “Why is the ferry never late when you are?”

We laughed agreeably and then looked at each other. What ferry is she late for? There’s only one. John checked the schedule and realized he had read it wrong. We needed to be scurrying back down that hill ourselves!

John set off on a trot. He said if we missed this ferry, we’d be stuck for two and a half hours. I wouldn’t have minded. I had noticed that the café was open, and we hadn’t had breakfast yet. I could totally sit at a café and eat breakfast by the water for two and a half hours. No problem! But John wanted to catch the ferry.

As we hoofed it down the hill, they started loading the cars. The loading process takes awhile, so we hoped that would give us time. They load pedestrians first, but we figured they would let the late pedestrians on at the end after the cars were loaded. And that’s what they did. They let us few stragglers board after the cars were all loaded.

And off we went!

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