West Seattle Golf - Round in sub three hours

West Seattle used to be my nemisis since I had only played there on weekends (6+ hour rounds). Apparently, if you can get yourself out of bed on a weekday and push back that first meeting, you can squeeze in a quick round, which is what I did.


Fog started burning off by the 3rd or so..


and then the day was gorgeous by the 9th tee


12th looked great as the views of Seattle started improving


View from 15. Out in 48. Even on the back so far


View from 16th. 3 over on back. Wheels coming off



View from 18th

9th hole. Ghost Creek at Pumpkin Ridge

From the tee


From the fairway


Highlights:

• Jeff played better than Jake/Shawn played better than both
• 4-putting
• Shooter McGavin (Pumpkin Ridge Pro) at Henry's
• Double Filet & Ravioli with Light Cream Sauce - Why?
• Free Drinks
• $244 ticket
• Portland for 3rd weekend in a row... really?
  

Jake's baseball swing

Furyk has nothing on this

Jamba rules the world

Get to portland and immediately need Jamba. Hotel recommends booya juice since it's close. I check it out and the says it's the last one. Long story short, the 3 others turned into Jamba juices and sales immediately shot up 400%. Maybe there is something to this branding thing.

South of olympia on the way to portland

So I can't believe it took me this long to discover domestic train travel. I always trains were slow and not really a good option for traveling. But here's what I realized - yeah trains are slow, sometime painfully slow, but they are a good alternative to driving and flying:

• can jump on and bring a couple bags and set of golf clubs with no problem
• No security check or baggage check
• if you use your phone as a modem like me, you can jump online, catch up on email, watch an episode of Lost, etc...
• the views are pretty awesome - postcard-type stuff
• seats have plently of legroom and you can also sit at a table
• there isn't this period of time on departure and arrival where you are locked down in your seat incapable of using anything electronic (for some reason I don't like that)
• train stations (at least for this seattle to portland trip) are right in the cities I'm departing from and going to - better location than the airport
• trains run late but not as late as planes it seems like
  
• The train took 4 hours total - 3:30 on train, 20 min getting to/from train station and 10min standing around
• A flight would have taken 4 hours - 1 hour to/from airport, 1 hour waiting at airport - checking in if you still do that sort of thing in person, security line, waiting to board, waiting in that line to get on the plane after they announce all remaining rows can now board, 1 hour of flying (40 minutes of which would be subject to those "stay in your seat/electronics moratorium" take off and landing rules and then 30 minutes of getting off the plane out of the airport
  

If I had driven to Portland, I would have gotten there quicker, but would have had to pay attention to the road (bad drivers, directions, traffic, etc), fought the urge to go 90, and dealt with traffic of some kind.

I'm guessing that there's some diminishing returns on trains if you use them for trips that would take more than "4 train hours"/"one flying hour" but if you're going from Seattle to Portland or maybe even Seattle to Vancouver (that'll be be my next test), I think the train is the way to go.

Train to portland