I had chosen Alki for my "road" trip because, though I'm fond of crappy speakers blasting old mix tapes and stands hawking huckleberry milkshakes, I no longer have access to a car. But you can certainly drive to Alki. The obvious way (straight over the West Seattle Bridge) doesn't make for much of a road trip, but you can also opt for a more leisurely, scenic route, which--with all its switchbacks and detours--should leave you feeling as though you've driven to another country entirely. Here's the route I recommend: Take a ferry from Pier 52 in downtown Seattle to Bremerton on the Kitsap Peninsula, drive from Bremerton to the Mormon enclave of Elma, Washington, dip down to Centralia, and then drive back up I-5 to the West Seattle Bridge. This excursion should take approximately five and a half hours.
But if, like me, you don't have a car, you might want to try the water taxi--really just a pint-size ferry--which costs the price of a Metro transfer, or two bucks, if you pay in cash. In addition to being cheap, the water taxi ride is gorgeous. Though the clouds were looming during our crossing, it hadn't started raining yet, and the primary colors of the industrial shoreline were bright against the gray sky. Nearly everything that is beautiful about Elliott Bay is artificial. The downtown skyline is dramatic from the water--all glistening glass and self-conscious architecture, bookended by Smith Tower and the Space Needle.
Twelve minutes after leaving downtown, the taxi docked at Seacrest Park in Alki. We skirted some aggressive rollerbladers and a cluster of small children gaping at starfish, and then the rain began to fall in earnest. More than one eyewitness account of that similarly wet 1851 Alki landing described the wussy deportment of the young women upon coming to terms with all that gray rain. As manly pioneer William Bell put it, "The ladys [sic] sat down on the loggs [sic] and took A Big Cry [sic]." Caroline and I weren't quite so pessimistic--not yet, anyway.
Then we started walking. And walking. And crouching under pathetic, stubby pine trees whenever the rain beat down too hard. And then we walked some more. West Seattle is not built for pedestrians, and Alki operates under the delusion that it is located in a drier clime.
Alki has always wanted to be someplace else. Its name is derived from an early homesteader who, in a bout of wishful thinking, saddled his land with the moniker "New York." Other, wiser settlers and the neighboring Duwamish Indians soon appended the ironic suffix "Alki," a trading jargon term that's usually rendered by our circumspect historians as "by-and-by." But a translation more in keeping with the spirit of mockery might be "New York-Pretty Soon" or, even better, "New York-Yeah Right."
Alki would never be the thronging metropolis the homesteader hoped it would be. It will forever be a seemingly misplaced little beach, whose rumored strongman contests and bathing beauties are flushed out whenever the weather reverts to rain. I'd heard all sorts of fanciful tales about this area, and just one week prior, in an incident thoroughly documented by the local news, hundreds of hypodermic needles had washed ashore. This bizarre report only confirmed for me that Alki was another world. Somehow, despite being born at Group Health Hospital and raised on Capitol Hill, I'd never made it out to our city's summer paradise. I had all the shoreline leisure I needed at various outposts on Lake Washington, without bothering with real, gritty sand and frigid saltwater.
But what Caroline and I found on the beach was disappointingly mundane. Some hardcore beach volleyball players, making sudden, reckless dives into the wet sand. A wide swath of Lord of the Rings-themed graffiti, including the two-foot-tall tag "LEGOLAS" and another, smaller "FRODO." A miniature Statue of Liberty, whose rotting internal plaster and various severed body parts were described in grisly detail on a fundraising notice nearby. There was a big bronze octopus and a centennial time capsule. Except for the kelp and the sand, Alki could have been any mildly kooky, sporty, Gore-Texed Seattle neighborhood.
Caroline and I soon fled the sopping beach for our motel, the West Seattle Travelodge. It's conveniently located miles and miles from the beach, with several massive hills and many deceptively deep puddles intervening, and it's apparently the only hotel in West Seattle. (Alki Beach tourists usually rent an adjacent condo, but most of those have inconvenient three-day minimums.) Our receptionist, who'd worked two shifts back-to-back and was feeling a little manic, ignored our bedraggled appearance and welcomed us enthusiastically. "Here's your key," she announced, one of her cross-eyes trained on me and the other surveying Caroline. "That's so you aren't scratching like a kitten to get in." She ran my credit card and handed me the slip of paper with the snappy directions, "Sign here, 'cause I don't practice forgery."
After we'd stashed our stuff and watched a few minutes of a PBS documentary about intelligent ravens, Caroline dragged me out into the rain again. Just down the street from the Travelodge, the Veterans of Foreign Wars post faced off against the social hall for the American Legion. VFW was hosting a wedding reception, and mournful country music poured out of the doors. Inside, a chocolate cake with beige and red icing had collapsed against itself, and no one was dancing. Across the street, the American Legion post was a little more happening, with another wedding reception, or perhaps a quinceañera, in full swing.
We spent the rest of the weekend eating, or drinking, or waiting for buses and cabs in the rain. We drank chai and ate delicious chocolate éclairs at the Alki Bakery, which reminded both Caroline and me of the former Surrogate Hostess (now an ugly Tully's) on 19th Avenue East. We scarfed down veggie burgers at the extremely efficient Lighthouse Grill, where the could-be-stronger cocktails all have beach-themed names. The only place on the beach that remained open as the evening wore down was a brand-new Irish pub called, distressingly, the Celtic Swell. When we arrived, everyone sitting at the bar was playing a game with blown eggs.
When, the next morning, we were ushered into Easy Street Records Cafe with the summons, "C'mere, wet girls!", it was clear our weekend at the beach had been badly timed and ill-equipped. As we slunk back to Seacrest Park to catch the water taxi home, a prepubescent scuba diver stood shivering on the beach. He'd had a panic attack when his mask had filled with water, and his very first dive had been ruined. He was keeping his chin up, but, like me, he was wet and cold and he never ever wanted to do this again.
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Postscript: Of course, when I tried to tell people about my trip, they all asked me why anyone would go to Alki when it was raining. So I had my friend Kate, a West Seattle native, take me back on a perfectly gorgeous evening the subsequent week. As with comedy, timing is everything, and as with masonry, equipment can be important too. Go to Alki when it's clear, bring a raincoat in case it's not, and you can properly admire the tricked-out cars and flouncy skirts and dusky orange sunsets. And while you're there, stop in and say hello to my former high-school classmates at Pegasus Pizza--they've got all the best gossip, and the pizza crust is pretty good.
Alki, West Seattle
(Pop. 19,949)
Directions: Ferry from Seattle to Bremerton, south on SR 3, exit to US 101 S, exit to SR 108 W. 108 turns into SR 8; exit to US 12 E, and then I-5 S to Centralia. Double back and take I-5 N to the West Seattle Bridge.
Driving time: 5.5 hours.
