So Da Wife needed the van this morning so I walked from the apartment to the 7-11 on S Tyler and Center Street. It’s the same walk I did yesterday with the dog. Today I tracked it. I know now why the dog is exhausted, It’s nearly a four mile round trip. When I got back I started cleaning the apartment. As I cleaned, it occurred to me that it really shouldn’t be this messy since there is hardly anything in it. Really, we have two folding chairs, a folding plastic table, and a net-top PC in the living-room and dining-room, oh and the crates for the dog and cat stacked bunk bed style. In the bedroom there is a cheap queen bed and two night stands we just got from IKEA. It should not have taken me 2 hours with dishes still to do. The speed limits are effecting me; in a short time you get used to going only 30mph everywhere and it takes you a while to clean an empty apartment.
Da Wife came back at lunch and I dropped her off back at work after. I was now mobile. At least more mobile than when I was on foot. I still really didn’t know where I was going to go. So as I pulled out of the parking lot I decided to make a right instead of a left and head towards University Place via S 19th Street. My idea was to just drive West until I couldn’t then head South for a bit. For those not aware, S 19th eventually goes down a rather large, rather steep, hill. It has a bike lane on it. I mention this because it seems slightly insane to me currently, and that I watched a Motorcycle cop pull a cyclist over for what I presume is speeding. The bicyclist blew by me on the hill fast enough that I heard the zip sound of his wheels with the windows up and the air con on.
S 19th Street also ends at a boat yard. Abruptly. I turned around and headed back up the hill then turned on Grandview Drive West. There are a lot of nice houses with a lot of nice vies on Grandview Drive. Some people have really nice views of other people’s trees and houses too. There are also a lot of cyclists there too. I can see it being a nice road to bike on, Especially when you get closer to the coast. I am guessing there is a trail there of some sort as i could find all kinds of spots for resting, and no places to park. We will be finding out for sure. If we don’t manage to make it up to Seattle this weekend, I think we’ll head back that way again.
I ended up in Lakewood. It seems to be a suburb area of strip-malls and teriyaki joints. I think you can actually go teriyaki joint hopping in lieu of bar hopping. Though I would wonder if bar hopping would be safer. Really, there are a lot. I tried to find out how many on google maps and it locked up the browser. Doing a search for teriyaki tacoma gave more that 299,000 results.
I ended up discovering that Grandview Drive West turns into Bridgeport Way SW. Not a big deal until i also discovered that Bridgeport Way SW becomes a gate for McChord AFB. A rather high traffic gate at that. With narrow visitor parking that was nearly impossible to turn the van around in. At that point I decided I should get back to the dog to let her out and got on to I5 for a ways. I got off at 84th as I remembered there were a few houses in South Tacoma we had seen online so I wanted to look around through the neighborhoods. I took S Yakima back to 19th. Passed more teriyaki places, looked by a few houses and headed home.