[15: Favorite mode of transportation]

The road opens up into wide lanes -- ten across, narrowing to six at the
front. I watch cars jostle, each trying to get into the shortest line,
traffic coming to a standstill like a parking lot, though this is by design,
not just happenstance on the freeway.

Trucks pull into the center lanes, flagged and signaled where to go by a man
in traffic-cop orange. The passenger terminal for the ferry is, sure enough,
on the left hand side of the sprawl of cars, and far enough back that
crossing here leaves one trying to dodge ten lanes of still high speed
traffic who are all paying no attention to the four cyclists at the side of
the road.

I'm fishing through my bag for something to eat. I'm always fishing through
my bag. Five thousand calories a day, more or less, is what we've figured
out that we're eating. That's five hundred calories in pasta every night. A
bag of potato chips -- party size -- each whenever we find some. We're not
carrying much with us, but it's still a cheap way to travel, since instead
of eating out, we can just buy a family size package of whatever we'd like
and put it away ourselves.

Lorin is leaning against a wall, eating an apple, out of the five pound bag
he bought this morning. There's a couple apples left, it looks like, by the
size of the bulge in his pack.

I trade him a block of cheese for an apple, and even though it's soft,
bruised and warm, it's still delicious.

The lanes start to fill and the traffic slows. We, dressed in bright yellow,
pink and green, are still invisible to the traffic, but at least now it's
moving slowly enough to dodge. We cross to the passenger terminal, and push
our bikes up the narrow ramps and lean them against the squat, concrete
building.

We pay our fares -- all of six dollars each, laughing that we're carrying
more than most of the cars that are paying thirty -- and are told to go back
down the winding maze of ramps and to load at the car dock.

We thread our way back out into the traffic, and ride down the narrow lanes
between cars, collecting annoyed glances from commuters who are worried that
we, lowly bicyclists, will take their place on this ferry and they will have
to catch a later one.

We park our bikes, or try, but the ramp is steep, and there's a twenty foot
drop on the other side of the chain, straight into the Puget Sound. We end
up waiting for the ferry, holding our bikes up from sliding into the water
the whole time.

Fifteen minutes of holding a bike loaded with gear on a steep incline is not
quite torture, but it's certainly not the best way to spend time, sweltering
in the sun, in the middle of pavement and exhaust fumes.

The ferry pulls in. The horns blast, and the engine is deafening, even
compared to the sound of a hundred car engines starting in unison. The gate
falls with a clang, scraping against the dock and moving slightly as the
ferry rises and falls with the water.

We board first, the ferry attendants directing us to park near the front,
and signaling the cars who decided that his directions meant that it was
time for them to get special consideration and that they should park in the
front, too.

The bikes are secured, and we each take our handlebar bags and climb the
rubberized industrial stairs from the fume-filled car deck into the main
passenger decks of the ferry, each of us making a click-click-click like
we're wearing high heels or tap shoes, since the bike shoes we're wearing 
have worn down enough to expose the cleats and they touch the ground as we
walk.

We sit, in our usual daze, blood finally slowing and hunger picking up
again.

The smell of french fries wafts across the deck, and we decide to check out
the ferry cafeteria.

Still overpriced, like we expect, but we can't resist the caloric density of
french fries, so we indulge in a couple orders, and they're gone before we
even find a table. I imagine we look like a pack of skinny wolves around a
kill, stuffing fries into our mouths as fast as we can.

This ride is almost an hour, so we go to get comfortable. There's a bench on
the bow of the ferry, painted with the same heavy green paint as everything
else, and we sit there, splashed with salt spray every few minutes, and
watch the Puget Sound ahead of us, and wait to pull into the dock in
Seattle.