A Walking Tour of Downtown Bremerton

I left the harbor and continued my walk around downtown to eventually make my way back to the Fairfield Inn.

This is one of my favorite places to eat…the Bremerton Bar and Grill. Yummy food and neat atmosphere. It is a little more expensive than I care to spend on just one meal, so I usually only get one visit in when I’m in town.

Wait until later when you see what my dinner was during this visit! Eek!

I ran away from a stranger complimenting my smile near the Naval Museum. He was very insistent and seemed to think that a few compliments would go a long way.

After I turned the building corner, I ran to try to get rid of him. Luckily, he didn’t follow me. But I kept an eye out for him for the rest of my evening so I could avoid him, if necessary.

Creepy, huh? I hate awkward situations.

Just follow the signs to the ferry! Isn’t this a pretty view?

Bremerton is pretty. You should go.

Remember this fish from my first night here? He’s still as big as he was then.

I love the glow lights that are strung from lamp post to lamp post over the streets of downtown. Isn’t that romantic? What a great idea.

Bremerton is a neat city full of old charm and modern conveniences. I just love this old building from the turn of the century. Bremerton really blew up when the shipyard came into existence in 1896.

Lots of adorable little mom-and-pop shops are all over downtown. This one is an eclectic art store that has been painted on the outside to show that the store owner is also animal-friendly. I love the little raccoons and mice. Look at the squirrel in the “tree!”

If you’ve been wondering where to buy tickets for Aaron Neville, now you know that he’s playing in Bremerton. Or was…bummer that we all missed that.

Cool theater though, huh?

Let’s head towards the Sound to get some pretty water views.

Look, a boardwalk! I wonder if I’ve already done that and had no idea that I was on the boardwalk!

My goodness, isn’t this gorgeous? Over there, on what seems like an island from this shot, is the peninsula where the town of Manette exists. That’s where I went to church before heading home from this fun weekend.

This is looking towards the harbor again, with a great view of the battleship, the USS Turner Joy. You can pay to take a tour of it, but I haven’t yet. It just seems like a lot of dough to drop, so I haven’t taken that plunge yet.

Has anyone out there done it? Is it worth the twelve buckaroos?

Here is the bridge to Manette. I snuck into someone’s side yard to get this picture.

Stalker Alert!

But I dare say…the picture was worth it. Isn’t that oh-so pretty?!

While I was pleasantly trespassing, I saw these little figurines on a porch. Aren’t they awesome?! I wouldn’t have them at my house…at least, not without a little spray paint, but I adored them in this setting!

I just love how the male duck and rooster have their wings around their little ladies. What cute looks on their faces. These guys just cracked me up.

Don’t worry…I left them there.

I didn’t cross the bridge today but have in the past. Remember…today was windy and chilly for a girl who lives in Phoenix!

Here is the very tropical and lush Bremerton Beach. Doesn’t that make you want to take off your shoes and wander in the rocky pebbles sand?

It’s actually a very nice bridge, complete with a great pedestrian walkway over to Manette. This is all part of the Puget Sound coming underneath this bridge towards the ocean.

Man, even looking at these pictures makes me miss this place already!

Oh my good grief. Look at that gorgeous sunset over that gorgeous harbor!

I almost feel like I should be getting charged per sunset, but I’m glad that isn’t the case.

Because this sunset would be worth a lot of money…

But, perhaps even better than a breath-taking sunset…now it’s dinner time!

I walked a few blocks from my room to grab a quick bite.

And I was pleasantly surprised that it was still Happy Hour! On a Saturday night?! Yes, and the prices were awesome!

I think that a grilled chicken sandwich sounds right up my alley tonight. And I am loving this price tag, too.

I love this place. The décor is awesome and has such neat lighting. I love the upside-down barn lighting up in the tall ceilings, and the hanging pendants just complete the whole package.

Did I mention that dinner tonight is going to be super-cheap?! Yippppeeeeeee! That helps the décor, too.

At least it’s a healthy addiction…but I love side salads to start. This Caesar salad was very good and got me excited for the rest of my meal. I love the huge shavings of parmesan cheese.

Yummy!

And this chicken sandwich was just so yummy. I don’t really need to talk about the fries, do I? They were purdy dern good, too.

That’s a whole lotta red onion! Good thing I’m eating alone tonight! I took a lot of them off, though, since I didn’t want to kill anyone on the walk back to the hotel.

Killer Red Onion Breath avoided.

Honestly, I don’t know how this happened. It wasn’t premeditated, if you can believe that. But I was at a whole $8 spent for an incredible meal, thanks to Happy Hour prices. And then she mentioned that apple crisp was on the menu.

When I was here over Labor Day weekend with Hubby, we shared a Blackberry Crisp at the table across from me. And it was one of the best desserts that I had eaten. Ever.

So I didn’t know what to say.

That isn’t like me at all, since I prefer my desserts to have chocolate and/or caramel sauce.

And, if you look closely…you can see that the apple crisp has caramel.

Done and done. It was heavenly.

At least, the few bites that I ate were heavenly!

Bremerton Harbor Love

The first morning in Bremerton started out overcast and windy. Throughout the day, pops of sunshine took place through the clouds. But the wind stayed all day.

Goody.

It didn’t stop me from heading out a few blocks from my hotel to explore some of my favorite spots in town.

Just a few hours later, the sun was shining happily. That was my cue to go grab some lunch!

Oh boy, I love the sound of the ferry horn. It makes me think of good things about to happen! I didn’t head over to Seattle today, but I’ve been over there many a time on the Bremerton Ferry.

It’s lots of fun, and probably the best seven dollars that you can spend for a round-trip ticket!

I didn’t want to go crazy for lunch today, since I knew that dinner was going to be yummy at the Bremerton Bar and Grill. I decided to grab a little sandwich and hot chocolate at Starbucks Coffee just across the street.

The building to the left is the Hampton Inn. It’s where Hubby and I stayed over Labor Day weekend, which was the last time that I was here for work.

That’s way too long, in my opinion. I wish that I had more say over where and when we go!

On a cold, blustery day, I thought that a hot chocolate sounded just right. But you know what? Starbucks hot chocolate is awful! Sometimes I forget that and order one anyway. Once again today, I was bummed with my $4 purchase.

But this panini sandwich was pretty good. It was a caprese sandwich that they stuck on the grill for a few minutes. It meant that the buffalo mozzarella cheese melted all over the pesto sauce, basil, and tomatoes inside.

Ooey gooey goodness. I can’t complain about this at all. And I managed to choke down the gross hot chocolate, too.

We wouldn’t want to get dehydrated, would we?

With a warm and happy belly, it was time to brave the windy cold again by wandering around the harbor. This is the ferry terminal to Seattle. But I’ve shown you this before.

And this is the Bremerton harbor. Over Labor Day, this entire marina was packed with boats of people in town for the weekend festivities. That was such a fun time! I loved having Hubby with me, too.

It’s odd to see this clear of all the people and food vendor tents, which were up five months ago when I last looked upon this view. I like it better without all the people, but that was sure a fun time.

People-watching is always better when there are people around. Weird, huh?

The local sea birds seem to have a favorite perching spot. The dirty little buggers.

This explains in one picture why Hubby and I agree that we will never have any animals in our home!

Especially seagulls.

This is the docking bay where the ferries arrive from Seattle every hour. Can you see the people lined up inside the terminal to board the soon-to-arrive ferry?

And here comes the ferry! If I was here another day, I would definitely head over to the city for an afternoon of heaven. For today, however, I was content to watch everyone else go to Seattle.

Come on, little ferry. Come on home!

What a pretty view. Apparently, they winterize these water fountains. When I was here with Hubby, they exploded with water shots about every minute. It was so neat!

Isn’t he cute? I missed him on this trip. I miss him on every trip.

This is where the cars and bikes and motorcycles exit the ferry. They come up this ramp and are soon on their way to town.

Here is the Bremerton Naval Shipyard. For the first three decades of the last century, this shipyard was the proud owner of the largest dry dock in the world. They’ve turned out many a boat from these buildings. In fact, during the peak of World War II, they were cranking them out two a week.

Can you imagine?! And not just little tugboats, either. We’re talking giant battleships!

Another view of the normally-watery fountains. It’s amazing how long it takes for a ferry to dock, so I just took pictures of everything around me while I waited.

Come on, little guy. It’s cold and windy, and I’m ready to be inside where it’s warm!

Man, someone keeps whining in here! That’s so annoying!

This is the view back towards downtown Bremerton. See how those rain clouds are moving in for another round tonight? I made it back inside before that started to happen.

But man, I love how rain smells. It might be my favorite smell of all.

This is the view looking back towards the other water fountains. Don’t you love how they’ve made them look like the tops of submarines? This whole town is very fishy and shippy.

Finally! This guy is close to docking! Can you see the cars underneath ready to disembark? It would be a cold day to sit outside on the ferry while this guy trucked across the Puget Sound. Luckily, it has a giant indoor seating area, too.

Honk hooooooonk! The ferry is here! I love how they use reverse thrust to get just the right angle to dock.

As you can obviously see, I don’t know a whole lot about boats.

I prefer things that fly, personally.

A few posts from now, we’ll wander through this museum again. I promise that it wasn’t just to get out of the windy cold, though that was a nice thought, too.

Looking back towards downtown, you can see the awaiting cars ready to load up on the ferry to go back to Seattle. It’s only docked for about ten minutes before it toots its horn and heads back east to the city. Halfway, it will pass the other ferry coming towards Bremerton.

I always wave at the other ferry. It probably freaks people out, but it’s hard to hide a smile and immense excitement when ferrying over to Seattle!

More of Bremerton to come!