…especially if you misread the water taxi schedule and miss the turn for the Lincoln Park bike trail.

My original plan was to ride through the locks and along the waterfront to pier 50, but I didn’t want to risk missing the 11:00 water taxi so I cut through downtown. Turns out I had plenty of time because the water taxi ran at 11:30–so I missed the 10:30 by 10 minutes! Grr. That’s twice I’ve misread the water taxi schedule so I’m bound to get it right next time. This was my first time with the bike on the real water taxi. We rode to Alki once before, but that was when a small Argosy ship was standing in on account of a water taxi collision. It’s great for bikes! There were two big bike racks and my bike and the road bike on board both stayed upright for the ten-minute ride.

Skirting around West Seattle was nice and flat and easily navigated…until I heeded the “Private road” sign and turned up 47th Avenue SW instead of connecting to the bike path into Lincoln Park. I had to walk the bike two blocks, but I finally made it–two and a half hours after I started. The map below is the route I should have taken. I won’t call it “the route I’ll take next time” because I’m pretty sure there won’t be a next time. Alki, for sure, but Lincoln Park, probably not.

The kids both fell asleep on the West Seattle side of the long ride home. Rounding the northern tip of West Seattle and seeing the water taxi approach the dock was such a relief after this morning’s snafu. I wheeled the sleeping kids on board and stood next to the bike. Probably not the safest way for kids to ride the water taxi, but yay for naps.

Heading up the waterfront, I couldn’t stomach the thought of an extra hill so I shook my first at Broad Street and took the long route through the locks. The big kid woke up in time to see the Interbay train yard. There was some good stuff going on today: lone train cars being pushed (or shunted in Thomas the Train-ese) down the tracks and a couple wingless 737s a couple cyclists deemed cool enough to stop and photograph. I waited until we were at the top of the hill to take my picture because I just wanted to get it done…so no nice fuselage shot for you.

I was exhausted by the time I reached the bottom of Wallingford so I didn’t attempt scaling Densmore (my current theory is that I only made it up last time because I was starting to get sick and my body wasn’t sending the proper “time to quit” signal) and had to walk an extra block and a half up 40th and 2nd.

Daily distance: 30.5 miles
Cumulative: 187.8 miles