Light

Tuesday I had nothing to do until 6 pm, so I decided to pick up my new underwater light for scuba diving. The shop had recently moved but it was still in Issaquah and I roughly knew where it was located. So that wasn't much of a big deal.

But on the way I noticed Mount Rainier standing out between some hills.
The night before the winds had blown away all the clouds so it was a wonderful day.
I pulled over and tried to recreate the same view that I saw from the elevated freeway, but it was damn-near impossible.

I found a walking path that went under the freeway, so I decided to see if I could get level with the road. There was a slight obstacle of a fence that aimed at keeping bums and people like me out from under the freeway. However, there was a little area of the fence that was pulled up, so I used that to get by. The fence itself was too flimsy to climb over.

Trying to get up to the freeway was a pain in the ass. There were tall trees and berry bushes everywhere. I got scratches on my stomach and legs (not to mention all over my hands) from those bushes. I climbed up on the upper extremities of the bridge only to find out that other trees were blocking the view I was looking for. So that whole idea was a bust. Well, at least the part involving the berry bushes was unnecessary.
So I decided I'd try the other side. Eventually I got down and went under the bridge to the other side. Now this area had traffic on both sides. Beyond where I popped up, traffic was merging and 60+ mph. But I stick poked my head up through there and snapped what I was looking for. Mount Rainier. Semi trucks kept wizzing by so I thought it was time to duck out of there. So I ran down the embankment, slid under the chain-linked fence and got back onto the trail where a woman with an over-sized pit bull greeted me.
They said nothing and I went on my way.

Covered in a bit of foliage, I took a few more shots of the area and got back into my car to hunt for the new dive shop location. I knew pretty much where it was. The only problem was getting to it. I had to go through some industrail-looking buildings to find the place. Leaving it was cake, cuz it's right on the main road. But from that road you can't take a left into the parking lot.
But as I said, I found my way around that obstacle and greeted Mark who was smiling and told me that he had something arrive for me yesterday.
Just what I wanted to hear!

He pulled out the light, gave me a quick rundown of the do's and don't's. Then he gave me a new tour of the place that's still getting put together, and some ideas of where he's going to put some stuff that he had from the old place. I liked how he looked for my input on ideas. I almost wanted to grab my camera and take pictures of the place. What impressed me the most were the amount of tanks that he has. There had to have been at least 50 just lying around.

So we BSed a bit, I played around with his newly adopted year-old kid. She was a meth-baby. He says she has some neural issues, but I didn't notice anything. I wasn't about to ask what. The only thing he did say was that she didn't make any noise at all for the first few weeks they he had her. Weird stuff.

The funny part was that this time around, my visit felt slightly different. Usually things like bolt snaps that are accessories to the expensive equipment that I buy, Mark will throw them in for free. And not only that, but he'll assemble the parts to my equipment. This time he just showed me and example and also had me pay.

Then I got to realizing... He knows that I pretty much have everything that I need to be a successful diver. I don't need to drop anymore wads of cash on him. So he squeezed out his last penny from me and didn't give me the VIP treatment. =P

Also during our conversation, he dropped a hint that I needed to go to doubles (double tanks), which means dropping a lot more dough. But then he was nice about it and said that I wasn't really ready for that yet. Which is true. I need to dive more before I'm good enough for that.
Then as I was leaving he said, "Don't be a stranger."
Which I've never heard from him before.
I don't know what to make of it. Yeah, I know he's in business to make money, but it just makes the report that we've built over the last half a year seem so fake.

The man didn't need to worry. Even without his subtle pleading if I ever need more gear I'm going to go back to him.
Cuz really, some day I do want to dive like they do.

Anyway. Here's the Issaquah link, I'll use a seperate post to talk about my further adventures in that same day.