Useless Bay

‘A house alone has little meaning, its the people who live there that give it character,’ John-Boy Walton

Now I don’t know if my American air BnB hosts were trying to ‘out-do’ each other in first impressions but it certainly felt like some shock-an-awe tactics were being employed. So forgive me dear reader, but once again I want you to imagine you have just flown in to another new city, made your way by train and bus until finally you drag your little case up a hill to your new home. Following instructions you find your way ‘round-the-back’ and begin fumbling away at the key lock unsuccessfully. Rather exhausted by now you check and double check the code given then begin to stab at the combination like a demented chimp until suddenly the back gate is flung open and Natalie Portman rushes forward enveloping you in a huge hug before deftly opening the lock like it was an early years toy. Continuing the all-American welcome she abandons an excited dog and daughter (hobbling in some ankle strap) to shove you in a car and drive you to the grocery store where you can get supplies. It seems Natalie Portman is, in fact, Argentinian by birth and as you chatter on, weaving our way round the supermarket car park there is suddenly a loud crrrrrruuunnchatchackchhh sound and the whole car is being pushed sideways. You panic, is it a clone attack, or Leon, or Thor?? No. A car is reversing straight into you.

None of us is harmed.

Natalie Portman (Marina) is shaking and the driver of the hatchback is getting out, he is sheet white. He is also about 12 years old and just in his socks. It turns out it’s Mum’s car, he’s just been in the games shop and is off to see the new Avengers movie. Marinas latin blood is now thundering round her tiny body whilst our hapless geek is trying every excuse to wriggle out of his blame. So you do what every self respecting teacher does and start to take charge, (in a gentle helpful way) (of course)! You hold onto car keys, insurance papers, tell the geek to put his shoes on and text his Mum and hug Marina (whether she likes it or not). You do however almost lose it with excitement when the Policeman arrives and it takes all your strength not to ask for a selfie and shout things like ‘book ‘im Danno!’

But after an eternity of grown up conversations with insurance people we eventually stumble in to the store, forgetting what we came for, but sweeping up bottles of wine and head home. I am of course feeling wretched as I was the reason for us being there in the first place but Marina is born generous and dismisses my worries. Joe greets us with laughter and comedic raised eyebrows. The rest of the evening is sublime, I unpack in my boutique-hotel worthy room (with four poster bed so high you have to take a running jump to get on) Joe sparks up the bbq and I regale Marina and daughter Zoe with woolly butt streets, disappointing mountains and my reason for staying, Useless Bay. We laugh a lot. The back yard is full of the signs of spring including (not a shanty town this time) an old air stream, a neighbour to the back is practising throwing meat cleavers at a wooden target, lily the dog is charging round our knees and Lucy the (big boned) black cat is watching me from a distance. Joe grins with amusement ‘Welcome to Mountlake!!’ He says with a glint in his eye. And I feel welcome indeed.

 

Seattle

The most shocking let down about Seattle was that ‘Frasier’ (one of my favourite American sitcoms) wasn’t filmed here. At all. Not even some outside scenes, so you can’t go and have a coffee at the same place as Niles, or hang out, outside the radio station. Nothing. Apparently the opening shots for Northern Exposure (where the moose walked down the street) were filmed nearby and Twin Peaks but no Frasier. I felt like writing a strongly worded letter to the Times! So the best I could do was take a ride on the famous monorail to see the Space Needle which creates that iconic skyline on the credits.

Now I wasn’t going to include this, but in retrospect it may be so awful that it’s funny. I laughed filming it and have to stop abruptly as I was bouncing so violently up and down with the motion of the rail. It is the truly uneventful view of the journey of the monorail. It’s a contemporary piece I like to call ‘the monorail journey’:

 

 

View from the monorail

The Space Needle from below

The Space needle is an observation tower that was built as part of a 74 acre sight for the 1962 Worlds Fair. The site is now called The Seattle Center, and is an arts, educational and tourism center in downtown Seattle. The center also includes the Chihuly Gallery and that, apart from pretending I was in an episode of Frasier, was why I was really here.

I first became aware of Dale Chihuly’s work after the exhibition in Kew Gardens some years ago and then when my mad friend Carol used it as inspiration for her art classes and had 10 year old boys blow torching old plastic bottles into weirdly melted organic creations. (Can you imagine how addicted to art you’d be if at primary school you had been allowed to blow torch anything?!) Chihuly a local Seattle artist began blowing glass in 1965, after much study and a masters degree in sculpture he travelled to Venice to work at the Venni factory on the isle of Murano. This was where he learnt new team approaches to blowing glass and after losing an eye in a car crash and a shoulder injury he became more a conductor/director in creating art. His work is exhibited internationally and at this permanent gallery in Seattle. Inspired by natural forms and indigenous craft his work is, well, it’s . . . ‘Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the Chihuly room. . .

‘Hold your breath, make a wish count to three. . .’

 

 

 

Come with me and you’ll be in a world of pure imagination  . . .

 

 

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‘Take a look and you’ll see . .’

 

 

If the gallery was like stepping into Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory the glasshouse and gardens were like being at Chelsea, Kew and Wisley all at once. I was enchanted. You can probably tell and immediately I wanted all my friends to see it too. What a splendiferous day out! (Of course I did spend a certain amount of time trying to take a selfie so it looked like I was wearing the greenhouse piece as an Ascot ladies-day fascinator) (wasnt a huge success, clearly wasn’t trying hard enough)

 

 

The glasshouse flowers at the Chihuly Gallery Seattle and my hat for the wedding

Point No point

Point no point is a lighthouse, (yes, I know, honestly I’m not making these things up). I only found out about it because it is opposite Useless Bay. (No really, they are both on the map) (yes a real map). I suppose the whole area is just one unique failure? Excited by its existence I wondered if I could bag a two-for-one on stupidly named places? Well, I think I  should say gently at this point dear reader, don’t get too excited.  It turned out I needed to get a bus, ferry and then hike three and a half hours to reach the lighthouse as there was no bus route on the island, that’s all fine of course until you have to get back home.

Now it’s here I feel I need to take a moment to praise the community bus services. When we were having our post-car-crash-supper Joe had said that the local bus drivers were very kind, he would let Levi (his son, I’d yet to meet) ride on his own and they would see he got to where he needed. Well Joe wasn’t wrong.

In a recent bus blunder (which turned into full blown lawd-lummy-I-think-I’m-on-the-wrong-bus-my-good-man!) I was told to sit down (before I fall down) and that I was on the right bus, just going in the wrong direction, but the driver explained he was just about to turn round. So he’d get me home. After a while the driver strikes up a conversation sort of yelling down the bus to me ‘so where are you from? I like your accent!’ I can’t hear him properly from my seat, and not really wanting to shout replies across other passengers heads, I go and stand at the front, and that is the start of a lengthy chat with my new best bus driver friend Glen. (Well he chatted, I did good listening, wobbling and hanging on to anything which would prevent me from going head first through the windscreen) Punctuated by passengers getting on and squeezing by me, most being addressed personally ‘Hey Greg, Alright Chad! Evening Susie how’s your Dad?’ He seems to know everyone, and at one point stops the bus randomly, opens the doors to a passing pedestrian hollers their name, jumps out of his seat gives them a full hey-come-here-hug ‘good to see you!’ I like Glen.

Now to say that Glen liked to chat is a perhaps something of a misguided understatement as by the end of my half hour ride home I knew that Glen was 51, adopted, that both his parents had now died, he had recently met his birth Mum, who was lovely (but liked a drink) he was a Leo, his father was a saggittarius, Glen was worried about his weight, was soon to visit Ireland starting in Dublin, had economy plus seats, his wife had a back problem, he liked wearing fishnets, his favourite Simpson was Marge, his signature dish was a peach Melba, Glen had English and Irish ancestors, Kim Kardashian tattooed on his eyelids and loved Benny Hill! (Well, some of those I might have remembered slightly inaccurately) We say our goodbyes and he shakes my hand as I get off the bus. I’m charmed.

Well a day or two later I was attempting the expedition to Point no point (or at least on reconnaissance)  which began with getting the bus to the local seaside town of Edmonds. I get to the bus stop but the bus times aren’t the same as the ones I’d found online and at only one an hour I’m contemplating my hopeless circumstances when a bus drives up. Do I want the 119? The driver asks me. ‘I don’t know my good man, I’m trying to get to Edmonds’ I begin. He pauses to think then slowly and deliberately reels off the various ways I could perhaps get there ‘wellll, seems to me if you take the 120 then the 116 or the 130 to the ridge then the 244 past the Olsens farm, you should find Olsen out on his tractor, he’d be going to Edmonds or. . .’ He catches my lost, desperately keen to understand stare. ‘Hop on now, I won’t charge ya, I’ll get you to a stop that’ll get you there, just sit up front’ And so he does. And although not as verbally hilarious as Glen he starts a chat (mostly about the wedding and how he hopes Harry will be very happy) (most conversations include the royals) and then again he shakes my hand when I get off.

The only tricky thing is although I am indeed at a bus stop that goes to the Edmonds it isn’t for another 50 minutes, so my chances of getting to Point no point and back without being eaten by wolves is looking doubtful. But my spirits are soon lifted, firstly by the little port town itself which is a bit like a Richmond-by-sea, full of interesting little shops, art galleries and cafes and secondly when I see this sign outside the local cinema:

 

 

Avengers Infinity War . . .It is Shakespeare in Spandex. . . Genius

 

 

Edmonds port, shoreline, tulips and old Fire Engine

 

Useless Bay

First of all I must allay your fears, the tag line might be ‘WoollyButt street to Useless Bay’ but the adventure doesn’t end here dear reader. Oh no! There are at least seven more weeks of labour-some nonsense you are now (practically contractually) obliged to wade through before we end this jaunt together. However saying that, I am  keenly aware that this visit is of some importance, the weight is on my shoulders. Point no point ended in no point.  I cannot escape this one with a hurriedly scrawled sign on a torn corner of a receipt thrust amateurly in front of the lense.Oh no. I must find Uesless Bay. Practically the whole adventure relies on it.

It took two buses, one ferry ride, another bus and a long walk to get to Useless Bay from my home in Mountlake Terrace, north of Seattle. The area is known as ‘The Puget Sound’ (no not a weird pugnacious noise) (that’s just my snoring) a vast large sea which crosses between land or islands. A sound is bigger than a bay, wider than a fjord and definitely easier to find than an inside passage. The Puget Sound is part of the Salish Sea but also is used to refer to the whole region including cities like Seattle. So I had to jump on my favourite bus service (no sign of Glen sadly) for an hours trot up to the little Puget Sound port of  Mukilteo.

 

The unfortunate scenery of Mukilteo and the Puget sound crossing to Whidbey Island

Useless Bay can be found on the island of Whidbey and I’d discovered that a bus on the island would get me near enough so I could hike there and back in this decade. The crossing was delightful and calm. The ferry carried a few cars, a cyclist, an older lady and me. Packed. Just packed. Awful views. It seemed that myself and the old lady (I say old, she had grey hair) (ancient) were getting the one bus. It either goes north bound or south bound, but at least it goes. We got on pulling out our dollars ready to pay when the driver started laughing slightly manically and staring at us like we’d just landed from a spaceship not the ferry. Then a lady (knitting ferociously) who was mysteriously already on the bus, started to laugh too. I began to hear the Twin Peaks theme in my head. This was odd. ‘It’s free! Laughed the driver ‘ only free bus in Puget Sound’ Mmm it was weird, but free, jolly good.

I thought I’d better tell the driver where I was headed so he could help me out but my ‘I’m trying to get to Useless Bay’ only fuelled more laughing. Then he managed ‘Are ya? well I can get you near’. I suddenly longed for Glen, he would have taken a diversion and driven me there, the knitting lady wouldn’t care she was apparently ‘just out for the ride’ going up and down the island on the free bus knitting. (Yes. I did a double take to see she wasn’t holding a log) But we soon headed off and after a little while (in which the knitting lady launched into a feminist tirade against the dictionary, state and everyone) we came to my stop. Or rather the bus just stopped on a main road in a forest. ‘ oh thanks’ I point to the road I think it might be down (according to the bible that is google maps) ‘it’s down there isn’t it?’ I offer, ‘well it could be, if that’s where you want to go’ the bus driver laughs again as the knitting lady manically clickerty clicks away watching me with hawk like eyes. I wonder if I should leave the old lady on her own with these two? But really I’m happy to be getting off, albeit in the middle of nowhere.

There is no sign at the top of the road which leads to Useless Bay, it’s remote, obviously no pavements and I start to wonder if this is really such a great idea. But my dampened spirits do not last long as I am swiftly rewarded with

 

Yes in the middle o nowhere there is a delightfully useless country club. I must be on the right track (literally) so after a good old chortle I continue on. It’s warm again, the road is long, the occasional car driving slowly past as I wobble on the grass verge. I remember my Dads advice, if there is no pavement walk against the direction of oncoming traffic so you can see and be seen (or stared at in this case). We spent most of our youth traipsing across the countryside, usually with other ramshackle 70’S kids in tow and this is exactly the sort of nowheresville Peter would lead us to. I imagined he was watching on with the utmost pride.

After following the side of the golf course for a while all my wishes were answered in the sudden appearance of a veritable gaggle of stupid place name signs (there might be a competition in this, what is the collective noun for amusing place name signs? An embarrassment of? A whimsy of? Answers on a postcard) It hardly matters I was in carry-on heaven.

 

Useless signs

It seemed that Useless Bay was a colony?! Members only? How useless did you have to be before you could apply I wondered? Could I continue my walk down Useless Avenue without being challenged on my Useless credentials? (Although I felt satisfied that I would be more than suitably qualified in that respect).

Useless Bay Avenue, or colony, or both, is essentially a long road down to the bay, straddled on each side by a Useless golf course and some rather smart clapper board houses, with large front porches and pretty hanging baskets. Yes it did have a bit of Wimbledon common about it, but with an eerie stepford-golf-carting-Twin-Peaks feel. (If you get me?!) Named by the United States Exploring expedition of 1841 ( also known as the Wilkes expedition after the commander Charles Wilkes). This was a huge survey of the Pacific ocean and surrounding lands including the oceans around America itself. They found the bay so shallow that it was almost dry at low tide and also offered no protection from prevailing winds, therefore ‘Useless Bay’ it was.

 

Useless Bay Golf Course on Useless Avenue

By now I was giddy with useless signage achievements and excited about seeing the bay itself so I wobbled on (now being stared at by useless golfers, useless drivers and twitchy curtain useless housewives) (it felt like the whole colony was silently assessing my presence) (or uselessness) (or both). My good mood however ended as abruptly as Useless Bay Avenue itself. Mmmm I was confused. Where was the path down to the sea front? Where was the sea front?

The end of Useless Bay Avenue

I consulted my google map. Oh. This was it. The private colony of Uselessness had succeeded in one respect, Useless Bay was on a private estate. So unless your useless house backed onto the beach there was no access, or at least none I could find easily. It was also getting hot and my thoughts were now wandering back up the road to find the bus to get to the ferry to get on the bus, off the bus and on another bus to get home. Should I really continue this Useless wandering or bank my useless signs and get out alive? I decided on the latter. We have a similar estate at home in Sussex in Middleton and Aldwick where there is no access to the beach for the grubby general public. So after a little walking in each direction and no luck I  finally decided the whole thing was actually completely and utterly . . . useless.

Epilogue

I had spent a wonderful week with Marina, Joe and the family in Mountlake Terrace. The bed was so comfortable I hardly wanted to leave it but when I did I seemed to find adventure and friends everywhere even on public transport. Approved of by animals, children and adults alike I was sorry to leave. But press on I must, next stop being Vancouver and not only a new city but a new country!

Now I had booked a train from a town further up the Puget Sound called Everett, there was a straight bus there and then a three hour or so train journey into Canada. What could possibly go wrong? I was booked on the 9:53 am train to Vancouver. I got the bus, arrived at the station, checked in my luggage, had a coffee, wandered around and had time to pick my nose. I’d been in touch with Hayden my next host, told him when I expected to be in, I had five minutes before the train left and all was well. That was until some minescual thing in the back of my brain made me wander up to the schedule board. With two trains a day there was no scrolling arrivals or departures but just a small printed board in the corner. I started to read:

There were TWO VANCOUVERS?? TWO?

I wasn’t sure what BC or WA meant but I knew that I had already been to Seattle and I was pretty sure Canada wasn’t back there. It was north. Suddenly I was in some weird slow motion, close up film shot. Like in a thriller where the detective finally works out who the murderer was. My brain was clunking into gear. I was going the wrong way!

I hurriedly went to the Amtrak desk and started waving my ticket around slightly wildly ‘I’m going to Canada! I’m going to Vancouver Canada!’ The attendant glanced at my ticket. ‘Oh No you’re not’ she replied (It was like being in some perverse Panto sketch) ‘OH YES I AM!’ I blurted without irony. I had lost all sense of proportion at this point, I was as Private Fraser would say ‘doooooomed’. Of course, I wasn’t. I hadn’t got on the train for one. The lady got my bag back off the luggage trailer (wheelbarrow) ( it wasn’t a busy place) and began trying to book me another journey. I could go on a coach that would take eight hours and arrive at nearly midnight? Or I could go tomorrow morning?  on the train to Vancouver BC.? Yes! ‘Yes-please-thank-you’ I said. And texted Marina.

My mount lake terrace family found this all of course hilarious. They luckily had no one booked so Marina just laughed away and said come back come back! And so I returned some what shamefully. But, of course sometimes, although it might not seem it at first, we are exactly where we should be. That evening everyone was home, Zoe, Levi, Joe, Marina, Lily the dog even Lucy hung around. I spent the evening playing.

Zoe explained to me and Levi the entire plot of Avengers infinity (Shakespeare in spandex) without spoiling the ending but with us all agreeing you could never trust Loki. We ate gummy snakes, seeing who could balance one on their upper lip (like a moustache) the longest, decided on our b-list super hero powers which included cling film man, played exploding cat card game, listened to Zoe play the death march on her violin, ate cheese toasties and noodles, chased the dog and ended the night playing throw and catch til it was too dark to see the ball. Joe laughed at me, well you wanted the Waltons! (I had, I’d said to him in the week it felt like Walton’s mountain)

And so I got my wish, one perfect night when we were all together, and I was no longer a stranger staying in the back room but part of the family. It wasn’t the boutique hotel room, the four poster bed, the house that made a difference that week but like John-boy said, it was the people that gave the house character, that made it home.

So goodnight Joe, goodnight Marina, goodnight Zoe, goodnight Levi, goodnight Lily, goodnight Lucy goodnight night everyone . . .

 

 

next stop Moody Park