Pampers and Paklava

The BIG LEAP: Anniversaries and Adventures

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Beth and Joel by Lake Union for the Leap Year

On January 9, 2005, I took a huge leap. I drove over to the house of a guy I’d never met. Together we boarded a ferry and headed to Bainbridge Island. Wine tasting, several hours of getting to know each other and one dinner later, I was hooked! Thus began our grand adventure.

Here we are–eleven years, many journeys and one adopted daughter–on the anniversary of our first date, the beginning of a new year and a LEAP YEAR at that. Perfect timing for a BIG announcement.

I’m getting my OWN WEBSITE!

You’ll (soon) be able to find Pampers and Paklava at: www.pamperspaklava.com

Yep. I’m hitting the virtual road with a new blog and website. How cool is that? Official announcement once my site is up and running. Stay tuned!

Beth and Joel by Lake UnionHappy Anniversary to me and the Mr.

Here’s to a year of leaps and adventures!

Take the road less traveled, Beth

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And a shout out to Wee One Photography for the great photos!

Ferry over Puget Sound

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I never get tired of riding the ferry. It is one of the things that makes Seattle and Puget Sound so unique, and I love that! Last weekend we rode the MV Hyak, built in 1967, from Bremerton to Seattle.

Washington State ferry

Puget Sound ferry

The Washington State ferry system has its origins in the “Mosquito Fleet,”a collection of small steamer lines serving the Puget Sound area during the later part of the nineteenth century and early part of the 20th century. By the beginning of the 1930s, two lines remained: the Puget Sound Navigation Company (known as the Black Ball) Line and Kitsap County Transportation Company.

Aboard the ferry

A strike in 1935 forced the KCTC to close, leaving only the Black Ball Line. Toward the end of the 1940s the Black Ball Line wanted to increase its fares, to compensate for increased wage demands from the ferry worker unions, but the state refused to allow this, and so the Black Ball Line shut down. In 1951, the state bought nearly all of Black Ball’s ferry assets for $5 million (Black Ball retained five vessels of its fleet). The state intended to run ferry service only until cross-sound bridges could be built, but these were never approved, and the Washington State Department of Transportation runs the system to this day.

Sailboat through the ferry window

As of 2015, there are 24 ferries on Puget Sound operated by the state. The largest vessels in this fleet carry up to 2500 passengers and 202 vehicles. They are painted in a distinctive white and green trim paint scheme, and feature double-ended open vehicle decks and bridges at each end so that they do not need to turn around.

Ferry seats and window

There are 10 routes serving 20 terminals located on Puget Sound and in the San Juan Islands, designated as part of the state highway system (hence WSDOT, Washington State Department of Transportation). The agency maintains the largest fleet of ferries in U.S. at 24 vessels, carrying 23 million passengers in 2014. As of 2014, it was the largest ferry operator in the United States, and the fourth-largest ferry system in the world.

On the deck

Stairs on the ferry

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Take the road less traveled, Beth

 

A nice pairing

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The pairing of food and wine is a complex and highly inexact science. It is fraught with outmoded rules and a propensity for generalizations.

Sid Goldstein, The Wine Lover’s Cookbook

Ferry across the Puget Sound

“Venison with a side of mashed potatoes and gravy,” would pair nicely with the wine in your glass, said the winery owner’s wife, looking Big Papa right in the eye.

“And with your wine, pizza,” is what she said to me.

Bainbridge Island WineryPizza?! I definitely hoped for more venison and less pizza in my life, in a metaphorical sense. It was January 9, 2005 and I was on my first date with Big Papa. Seattle lay under a dusting of snow, and the air was chilly, but inside the Bainbridge Island Winery we were toasty and warm as we stood side by side and sipped. We had successfully navigated a ferry ride to the island (successful in the sense that we liked each other enough not to end up on opposite sides of the boat), and had commenced to part two of our date: wine tasting.

Big Papa and I found each other on an online dating site and, for our first date, I asked him to think of something more creative than going out for coffee (the gold standard for first dates with online suitors).  He said “ferry ride” and I said “great idea.” I suggested Bainbridge Island as our destination and wine tasting as our island adventure. We were two people who had never met, taking a ferry to an island across Puget Sound, to drink wine and then ride the ferry back to the city, easily a 3-4 hour date as opposed to a 30 minute coffee chat. What could possibly go wrong?

Faye Bainbridge State ParkAs it turned out, nothing went wrong. Our first date was awesome. We left the winery and drove to Faye Bainbridge State Park, where we sat at a picnic table near the water as the sky grew dark (I must mention again how cold it was). I brought out the cheese, crackers and chocolates I’d carried along with me in my backpack. We quickly found out that the chocolates (and some of the cheese) were frozen when Big Papa tried to cut a chocolate truffle in half and it sailed off into the evening sky. I’m not sure how much time passed as we sat there together, sharing stories and getting to know one another, but I do remember that my fingers were numb from the cold by the time we decided to head back to the car.

In a flash of brilliance (and attempt to be the female equivalent of gallant), I grabbed the fleece “emergency blanket” stored in the trunk of my car (which, by the way, I still have) to throw over our legs on the drive back to the ferry. And throw it I did. As Big Papa got into the front passenger seat, I tossed the blanket (which is tightly wrapped into a fabric envelope, like a pillow) in his direction.

“OW!”

“Are you okay?”

“You hit me in the face.”

“Oh wow. Sorry. Did I hurt you?”

“You nailed my cheek.”

I started to laugh. I couldn’t help myself, the hilarity of it all (though I will say I breathed a silent sigh of relief the moment he started to laugh too). We were having a good time together, inadvertent attempts to cause my date bodily harm notwithstanding.

On the ferry back to Seattle, he suggested we continue our date and go out to dinner. We headed to Coastal Kitchen. After dinner, wine, and dessert–eight hours after I’d picked Big Papa up and said hello for the first time–I dropped him off at his house and headed home to my apartment.

Since that first date, nine years ago, we’ve continued to taste wine–and share adventures–together: in Oregon’s Willamette Valley and the Walla Walla wine region in Washington State, in New York, Pennsylvania, California, Canada, Mexico, France, and Armenia. Wine at restaurants, tasting bars, wineries and–most of all–at home, where we enjoy wine collected from our travels.

And you know what? The two of us are still a nice pairing.

Seattle from Puget Sound at night on the ferry

Take the road less traveled, Beth

I love to ride the Seattle ferry

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I have never been aboard a steamer

I am just content to be a dreamer

Even if I could afford a steamer

I will take the ferry boat every time

~Andrews Sisters, Ferry Boat Serenade

Riding the Seattle ferryFerry on Puget Sound from Bremerton to Seattle

 

Riding on the ferry over Puget Sound

Inside the Seattle ferry.

Riding on the ferry

Seattle skyline from the Seattle ferry on Puget Sound

Me and the little one on the Seattle ferry

Whether riding the Seattle ferry or not, ferry yourself over to Delicious Baby Photo Friday for more cool shots.

Seven years, a few wrinkes, and a ferry ride

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Big Papa and me at ferry to OrcasAt Anacortes, waiting for the ferry to Orcas Island: 2005

Big Papa and I started dating in January of 2005. Our first date was a ferry ride to Bainbridge Island.

Two months later, we hopped aboard another ferry for our first weekend getaway, this time to Orcas Island in the San Juans. We rented a cabin and enjoyed two romantic days together. On our first night, we drank champagne and listened to the sound of the waves, even though it was raining so hard we couldn’t see the mist enshrouded shoreline.

In the morning, the sun came out and we made our way up the steep, winding road to Mt. Constitution. When we reached the top, we were able to look out over Puget Sound and see as far as Mt. Rainer, over 150 miles away. At the trip’s end, we felt rested, energized and in love.  We promised we’d return.

Big Papa and me at the ferry to Orcas 2012Waiting for the Orcas Island ferry: 2012

Seven years passed before we finally made good on our promise and decided to head to Orcas again–this time with our daughter– for our first trip together as a family (that is, if you don’t count the 6,335 miles we traveled to bring Baby Bird home from Armenia). When I look at the picture of the two of us, standing side-by-side at Anacortes, waiting for the ferry, I can see the gray in Big Papa’s beard and lines on our faces that weren’t there on our first trip, lines we earned over the course of seven years, from the wrinkles life tossed our way.

This trip, we also encountered rain and fog, fog thick enough that we could barely see the shore, even though we could hear the waves. And, we were fortunate enough–once again–to have one day of sunshine, on my birthday. We made our way up the long, winding road to Mt. Constitution, stood at the top, and looked out toward Mt. Rainier, some 150 miles off in the distance…as Baby Bird squirmed in our arms. We brought along a great bottle of wine, which we drank on the porch of our cabin–utterly exhausted–while our daughter fussed and cried in her crib, resisting sleep at every turn.

Our second trip to Orcas was not like the first. The first trip was smooth sailing. On this trip, there were wrinkles.

But as challenging as it was, and as much as I might miss the romance of the “old days,” I feel deeply committed to going places with Baby Bird, whether it’s a couple days on Orcas Island,  a week-long adventure to the east coast to visit family, or–hopefully 0ne day–a trip half-way around the world, to the place of her birth, Armenia. Because while it’s always good to have a place to come home to, there’s a world outside our door I want our daughter to explore. I want her to have the experience of riding on a ferry, flying in a plane, feeling the wind in her face on the top of Mt. Constitution or the sand under her feet on a beach in Hawaii. I want her to see the world we live in, and learn to love and care about its inhabitants, animal and human alike. And the only way to really do that is get out there.

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Big Papa, Baby Bird and me at the ferry 2012 The three of us at the ferry: 2012

1-9-0-5

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Part I of V

All hail the Internet! Without it, Big Papa might never have entered my life. When we met, I’d been dabbling with online dating on and off for several years. On New Year’s Day, 2005, I was about to head into an off phase. I needed a break. A spell of disastrous dates had dealt my self-esteem a serious blow and I wanted off the Match.com merry-go-round.

Match

The New Year began with me purging all the emails from ‘prospects’ I’d corresponded with in recent months. Then I canceled my membership. I was informed that my profile would remain up for three days before I would fade into Match.com history.

As a parting gesture, I ceremoniously sent one final e-mail into the ether to a guy whose profile said he found that “pulling weeds was therapeutic.”Salt of the earth, I liked that. My e-mail read, “In three days I’ll be a Match.goner. If something in my profile piques your interest, my home e-mail is…”

A reply was in my in-box the next morning. For the next few days, little missives were exchanged, and we discovered a bit about each other. We both moved to Seattle from similar cities on the east coast in 1985. We’d each done a few-year stint in California. I had two cats and he had one (big points for being a guy with a cat). He also lived barely a mile from my apartment, which meant he was geographically desirable, as a former boss used to say.

We decided to meet in person and bypass the awkward, “Let’s chat on the phone” stage of the blind dating process. Sick of coffee dates that felt like job interviews, I asked if he would suggest “something more unique” for our first get together. He responded with, “How about a ferry ride?” Brilliant! I love to ride the ferry and this adventure sounded like fun, albeit that it was early January and snow was in the forecast. Some months later, we both confessed to each other that we’d had second thoughts. Big Papa told me he’d mused to himself, “Why waste a perfectly good Sunday on something that isn’t likely to go anywhere.”

1905Our rendezvous was set for Sunday, January 9, 2005. I offered up transportation to the ferry and Big Papa gave me his address. His house number was 1-9-0-5.

So, on 1-9-05, I drove up to 1905 and picked him up. My first impression was that the Urban Cabin was cute and homey. Standing in the doorway, I saw two Edward Hopper prints, one of my favorite painters. I like the colors in Big Papa’s home. It looked like a place where I’d feel comfortable. It also didn’t hurt that I thought Big Papa was pretty handsome too.

He got into my car. I was nervous. He was nervous. Off we drove to the Bainbridge Island ferry. As we chatted more, we both relaxed. I had a feeling of ease and familiarity. Talking with Big Papa was as comfortable as standing in the doorway of the Urban Cabin.

The ferry ride led to wine tasting at the Bainbridge Island Winery, which led to hanging out at Fay Bainbridge State Park and eating cheese and frozen chocolate truffles (remember, this was early January), which led to dinner back in Seattle at Coastal Kitchen.Ferry

When I dropped Big Papa off at the Urban Cabin, some eight hours later, we kissed goodbye. He told me he enjoyed our time together and wanted to go on a second date. Driving back to my apartment, I realized I felt none of the first-date angst that so often accompanied online dating. Did he like me? Yes, I felt fairly confident he did. Would he really call me to get together again? Yes, I was pretty sure he would. Honestly, it was the best dang date I’d ever been on.

I smiled to myself as I reminisced about our first date on 1-9-05. I smiled bigger as I thought about Big Papa and 1905, the Urban Cabin. After many years of wandering, it felt like I’d finally come home.