Seattle Patriot

This past Saturday a group of friends (old and new) invited me on their evening tour of Historic Ballard’s points of interest. This being my first “Pub Crawl,” I was unfamiliar with the concept and didn’t quite dress exactly right for the occasion. Although I nailed the jeans (which was the appropriate attire for a Ballard pub crawl, I was later informed) I failed miserably in the shoe department. I went for “cute” when I should have been going for “appropriate for traveling long distances on foot.” In any event, I made the half mile walk to our first destination – The Jolly Roger – a friendly neighborhood pirate hang out, where we enjoyed dinner and cider, and where I surreptitiously tried to copy down the treasure map that was the floor of the establishment.

Two hours later, after the slowest service known to man, we were off to our next port o’ call: The Diviest Bar I Have Ever Been In. (I’m not sure if that’s it’s real name, but…) Although it lived up to its name, it was the location of the best 25 cents I’ve spent in a good long while – After getting a tutorial on how to use the electric dart machine from one of the skeeziest guys in Seattle, Jessica and I played each other and tied three consecutive times at 7 points each (which is good, for those not in the know). Perhaps the most surprising thing about our second stop was that despite the shady characters within, they were playing the Seattle version of American Idol on their TVs

Moving right along, we went to a third location, which appeared questionable from the outside, but was actually quite clean and nice inside. They advertised desserts, which caught my eye, but were out of what I wanted, so I went with a Sex on the Beach instead – excellent call. This place was also showing “Seattle Stars” and an ABC Family movie. Go Ballard! Best of all, though, was a local gent we met who had come out in his best leather chaps and was enjoying a nice glass of red wine. Truly interesting characters out there…

Our fourth stop was at a VERY crowded place on Ballard Ave – standing room only. Clearly we were moving into the trendier parts of town, because the chap-adorned crowd was nowhere to be seen, and Seattle Stars was nowhere to be found. This place had a fun ship painting on the wall that made me just a little bit seasick as the ships actually rocked around on stormy seas. I tried an appletini here, which was incredibly strong, and ended up pawning the end of it off on Jeremy, which was fine by both of us. Due to the crowd, we moved out of here fairly quickly to our last stop: Hattie’s Hat.

The Hat had a pretty good crowd that night too, but we made our way to the back room where Carmen and I met some very lovely fish. I promptly set about to naming our favorites. The best of the bunch was a spritely little chap named Roger. He had the appearance of wearing spectacles and the tendency to keep to himself. When the rest of the group made its way to the back, we rejoined the humans, leaving Roger to fend for himself. Jeremy agreed to let me negotiate for him on his apartment lease situation, and we shook on that. Shortly thereafter, we called it a night and made our way home. Thanks for a great evening, guys!

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