Trans/plant/portation

It started out well enough, our bags stuffed to the gills, some fresh homemade granola bars and drinks up front with us, needing to get gas but we had enough to get out of town and over to the cheap gas station, about 30 miles out of town. It was obvious to anyone alive that it was a pretty windy day—too brisk to say, picnic in the park, but not so bad you worry your dog will blow away on a walk. Well, hindsight tells me now that if it was that windy in town, it was two or three times that bad once we were clear of any buildings to slow it down. I got quite the forearm and biceps workout as I battled to keep the car on the road.

tumbleweed

Next up were the tumbleweeds. Now then, let’s take a minute to explain tumbleweeds. Recall the theme from High Noon if you want to, sure, but I’m talking about something much less romanticized and rather more pure irritation. These were once scrub brush, small brown and green plants that grow in a clumpy cluster and huddle up on the rolling hills that surround the narrow roads. Summer came, and they flourished. They hailed the good times with regular downpours of rain, told themselves to put off making strong root systems, and just enjoyed the good life. Fall came and went. They were totally unprepared for winter. And then, the winds started. The rain didn’t go that deep into the ground. They started drying up. Panicked, they tried to consult their neighbors, only to discover whole groups of them that were now dead or dying.

Or were they? For it is such that nature decrees that any scrub brush bush that dies is sent to live again as the Undead Plantage. Humans call these tumbleweeds. They’re pushed along with no chance of fighting against the breeze, they thrust themselves under parked cars, roll down and up hills, hurtling themselves at the thin traffic on Highway 12 like it could be their last big event on this earth. They are like unwanted rodents—where you see one tumbleweed, there are hundreds.

They came at us from every direction. They lined up and assaulted the car like kamikaze Rockettes. Susanne informed me that I was the only car on the road attempting to dodge them. I can’t help it if a good portion of my childhood was spent playing Frogger on various gaming systems (Intellivision’s version kicked Atari’s ass!). We looked to our right at a fence that had heretofore never made sense to us and realized it was a tumbleweed-catching fence. There were literally thousands of them self-shoved into every part of it. In some sections there were so many new arrivals could jump the fence, wagging their tumbleweed fingers at the farmers who’d tried to keep them out, victorious in their zombification of the landscape. A couple particularly large ones (in fairness, they may have merged with other dead shrubs to form super-tumbleweeds) threatened to take out the car, and Susanne didn’t seem to mind that I worked to avoid those. A few of them were totally unpredictable and sort of spun in the roadway, instead of hightailing it from one point to another.

How we drove from desert wind storm to blizzard, I’m still not sure, although I have been assured I was in the same state. This microclimate thing is insane. No sooner had we left the foothills of eastern Washington than we started approaching 2,500 feet in the Cascades, getting ready to drive through the Snoqualmie Pass. And let me assure you that right now, this very minute, as I type this on Monday, March 16, at 9:25AM PDT, it is snowing in the Snoqualmie Pass. Yesterday, it was not just snowing. Yesterday, it was blizzarding. There were big, wet flakes that stung as they hit you. I know this because all non-4-wheel-drive cars were required to put on snow chains before they could go through the pass. Not that there were any state troopers to enact such a requirement. But everyone pulled off to the side, marked for such an event. We couldn’t get our chains to fit because clearly our tires have gained a lot of weight since Christmas. I keep telling them they need to drop a few pounds, but why would they listen to me? Fully an hour later, soaked, numb, and very, very bitter, Susanne (mostly) and me (a little) had gotten the chains on, and we were off—except the chain up area is 20 miles ahead of the actual pass. Given that the car wouldn’t drive over 25mph with the chains on, it was a long time before we actually made it to the pass. The pavement, all along the way to the pass, was wet but clear. So we more or less vibrated to the pass. And the hours trailed by, tick tock, tick tock.

Now we were in the national forest zone. Still snowing hard, had the defroster working, the windshield wipers, Susanne drying out her feet since her sneakers had soaked through in the slush. Surely we’d see snow-covered conditions now. Nope. Three more slow, anxious, vibrate-y miles later, we were in the actual pass. Thank goodness we had snow chains! Right?

Wrong. There was a little slush on the road, and NOTHING ELSE. Fully 90 minutes after the big slow down to put on chains, we realized we’d been had by the Washington State Department of Transportation. Sure folks, it was snowing, but all of the uh, traffic was keeping the roads clear.

We pulled over with every other frustrated motorist, and unhooked the @#%@#^% tire chains. And a friend in Seattle told us that it had been sunny since 11AM that day, where he was.

You can imagine how happy we were to hear that, 6 hours after we’d left Walla Walla.

So Walla Walla gets its laugh on us again, always causing some kind of calamity when we try to leave the city limits. It’s how it keeps its population of 30,000, I suppose. It’s like one great, big Amityville Horror, and the tumbleweeds are the evil flies.

I got up early today, well, early for me, meaning 7:30, well after sunrise but hours before the sun would reach its peak in the spring sky. I got in the car for a long ride to Portland, first following the Columbia River and then dipping down to the interstate. I had plugged in my iPod which is bursting at the seams with 18 gigs of music, I had made a fresh thermos of coffee, and had downed a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. I had brought with me a banana, directions, my cell phone, and not much else. 

The road from here, Walla Walla, to there is filled with microclimates. East of the Cascade Mountains one will observe magpies; west of them there are none to be found. Out here in eastern Washington/Oregon there are many rolling hills as part of the scrubland landscape–red-brown rocks and outcroppings share space with tan brush that gives the effect of looking like sheep that need to be shorn for the year. Thirty miles west of Walla Walla the gorges begin, and the royal blue river winds through the high hills as if to thumb its nose at the typically pale blue sky up ahead. And that sky is empty; only the long series of enormous windmills dare to drive up that high, standing over the scene like silent giants, spinning slowly and methodically as I zipped by. (Note to Oregon State Patrol: “zipped” means under or at the speed limit.) 

The rolling hills slowly begin to grow, and as they acquire the status of height, they pick up other things: taller scrub brush, small evergreen trees, fine dustings of snow. These, in turn, evolve to another status as deciduous trees appear on the side of the road, the evergreens get taller and taller, and the dust gives way to a thickening green carpet of moss and wild grasses. Now the blue river cutting through the rock looks complementary to the other Mother Earth colors, and then the dams begin, controlling and harnessing its flow.

The dams are not without their controversy. Fishermen wail that their harvests are at all-time lows, just 40 years after the dams were installed. Farmers cry out to keep the dams because they rely on the steady irrigation. Conservationists fret about the livelihood of the salmon spawning capability, tourist guides in Idaho bemoan what the dams are doing to their industry, and security experts talk quietly about risk assessments. I, however, am single-minded in my quest to reach my destination, and decide to defer the arguments for another moment. Such is my luxury.

Dead ahead of drivers on I-84, all of a sudden, is Mount Hood. It looms in the background like a gigantic screen saver and I have to blink many times before I realize it’s the real deal. Snow-covered as far as I can see, top to bottom. A sign that flashes by on my right tells me that it is 11,000 feet tall. That’s two or so miles high, I calculate vaguely. I see the hillsides around it; now they look like a velvet cloth has been cast over them, with the soft grass and moss and the dry patches of sand worked in. I bet this is the doing of the giant windmills. I see parts of two or three windmills passing me on the highway, dismembered on a series of WIDE LOAD-marked semis. Each truck comes with its own pacer car that alerts other drivers to the mystery of the cargo — it can take two or three trucks to figure out what these very very large pieces of white metal are, until you’ve figured it out the first time. 

Eventually I hit actual traffic, and by traffic, I mean more than one tractor-trailer and a nervous-looking woman in a 1990 Ford Escort. I have a moment where my sense memory comes back to me, so I change my distance to the car ahead, lest some jerky driver try to cut me off. I tell myself this is one of the good things about Walla Walla. 

I finally make it to my goal, shut off the car, and walk inside the building, my legs having stiffened up during the long drive and barking at me for neglecting their care. One hour later, I’m back in the car, heading home, to go through the process in reverse, and this time, with the setting sun behind me, gradually turning to a burnt umber and snuffing itself out just as I pull in to the driveway.

Gearing up for surgery tomorrow, I’ve just been trying to keep things tidy around the house and make sure we’re stocked with foodstuffs and the other necessities one wants when one is recuperating from such an event. It’s kind of like getting ready for a storm, I suppose, because you know you won’t be going out for a while, but it’s unlike that — simply put, when you’re the only person at Safeway buying ginger ale, potato chips, and batteries, people look at you strangely. When everyone is buying up for a storm, it’s no big deal. It wasn’t even that crazy, in the days after 9/11 to purchase yards of cellophane and duct tape, with which we could all slowly suffocate ourselves in our own homes. But ginger ale and batteries? He must be insane, the cashier thinks.

So we came back to Walla Walla a bit over a week ago, to snowy highways and a persistent fog that obscured, once again, anything on the sides of the highways so that it looked like the beginning of Heaven Can Wait  where the squirrely guys come out and try to escort you to your Next Phase of Death. Only then you find yourself in a recently murdered body and can’t understand why Dyan Cannon keeps screaming her head off every time you walk in the room. Okay, it wasn’t quite like that, it was more like this:

The long long road to Walla Walla

The fog lifted after about an hour of driving, and to give ourselves a last moment of civilization, we stopped off at Costco, about 50 miles outside of W2. First though, we went to P.F. Chang’s for lunch where we had a rather uninspired meal that culminated in me receiving just about the most annoying fortune cookie ever, or at least for these last five months.

Fortune cookie from the land of the obvious and ironic

That was good for a laugh, at least. I’ll be sure to let the management of P.F. Chang’s know when I’ve encountered the exotic, because you know, I’m sure they’re on pins and needles waiting for such an epistle.

In the meantime, I wait for the surgery. And then I’ll do my best to follow instructions and wait through the recovery. And then, happily, I shall bowl.

eagle's plume

My sister was holed up in her bedroom, recovering from back surgery, and the rest of us were hanging out in the kitchen, playing Apples to Apples while a turkey soup coalesced on the stove. The word to match was “smooth.” Those unfamiliar with the game should know that it works by one player, the judge, putting down an adjective card, and the other players looking at their hands of noun cards, with the goal finding a card the judge will think is the closest match. The winner gets the adjective card, and the next player is the judge for the next hand. One winds up aiming for what they think the judge will pick, not what they themselves would match up. Obvious playcating, like putting up “Canadians,” for the adjective, “brave,” when Susanne is the judge, won’t fare one very well. The game lends itself toward advocating for your noun card so the judge at least can see your logic. Conversations can get a little odd with all the lobbying, but apparently, this is a selling point for the game.

Okay, so the card was “smooth.” I had bubkus in my hand, and couldn’t decide between the following:

The 1970s

Republicans

Mardi Gras

David Hasselhoff

The Leaning Tower of Pisa

I thought and thought and thought, and I had nothing, so I slapped down the Mardi Gras card just to get rid of it. A number of seconds later everyone else had put down their card, and then the conversation went like this:

Jamie (my 13-year old niece, who was the judge this turn): Um, bald eagle? They’re not smooth.

Michael (my best buddy): Sure they are.

Susanne (my honey): Well, they’re not really bald.

Michael: They’re smooth, really.

Jamie: Uh…

Michael (in defense of his position): They have plumes. They’re smooth.

At this point, the table erupted in laughter. “Plumes” became the Pee-Wee Hermanesque word of the weekend, with my nieces trying to get Michael to say the word every 20 minutes or so. He even recorded the word on Jamie’s cell phone.

Honestly, a 13-year old with a cell phone is like an old lady with a Cadillac DeVille — you just wonder when you’ll hear the acceleration and crash in the background. But for now, she has constant access to “plume.”

Susanne, Michael, and I headed down to DC a few days later, and I cajoled them into pulling off the Turnpike at the Bordentown exit so that we could go to one of my best-loved restaurants on the planet, Mastori’s. This establishment has grown since my parents and I ate there in the 80s, and now features 5 large separate eating rooms.

Mastori's restaurant front door

Now then, for people from New Jersey, diners are a fact of life, and from the day a child can read, we verse ourselves in how to interpret and understand one of the most difficult texts in US culture, the diner menu. I am not kidding — there must be 300 choices of things one could order, everything from the boring and standard chicken tenders, to the nearly high-class dishes like veal scallopini, and absolutely everything in between.

For example, Mastori’s menu looks like this:

Easy to choose menu

Exacerbating the sheer number of choices is the 7-point font, the daily specials list, and the menu items the server only tells you about in person. It is literally mind-numbing.

Somehow, some way, we figured out what to order. It was a blur, actually. I tried to find a way to get Michael to say “plume,” but he was having none of it, being rather plumed out. Mastori’s failed us a little, with slow service not common to the establishment. Perhaps they’ve grown too big to remember where all of the tables are. Out on the terrace, we did seem to be in another ZIP code.

But then again, there’s nothing like a pizzaburger to make me feel like I’m back in my home state.

We are the proud owners of snow chains. Susanne and I strapped them to the front tires yesterday morning, one $40 purchase closer to being able to get out of our back alleyway and onto the snowy street, which is only 8 snowy streets away from the highway out of town. Turns out we had to shovel the alley all the way out to the street because it was too high for the undercarriage of the SUV. We’re not talking low-riding NASCAR racer here — we’re talking Honda CR-V with a clearance of more than 7 inches. This was not DC snow. Apparently it’s also not Walla Walla snow but since this is our first winter, to us it’s now a package deal in our minds.

Thirty minutes later we had shoveled our way out, and the chains did their job giving the car some traction. Then it was off! To where, we didn’t know. We were just excited to be out of the house! So we went where any red-blooded North Americans would go — we drove to Macy’s and did some last-minute shopping. Nice bargains at the only department store in town, I must say.

Back home, we decided to part out front on the street. The math went like this — if it snowed badly overnight, we’d only have to dig off the car, but if we put the car back in the garage, we’d have to shovel out the whole alley again. So we parked on the street.

This morning, I heard a rumbling like a train was rolling down our street. Unfamiliar with such noise, I looked out the kitchen window. It was . . . wait for it . . . a PLOW! In the alley! Twelve days after the snow first started accumulating, and notably, 30 MINUTES before we were leaving Walla Walla, the plow dug out the alley. Gee, thanks a lot, jackass. Where were you on December 15?

We drove on up to Spokane and it was like a drive into an Agnes Martin painting of white on white. The road was white. The hills were white. The scrubland plants were covered in snow, rendered invisible. The fog was white. The sky — take a guess. There were two rut lines in the road, and so I followed  those to keep on track. I’ve never seen white like that.

Agnes Martin painting

I think the only place more remote would be the River of No Return in Idaho. Or so it would seem. But come to think of it, there are probably people there. There are not all that many people up here in Spokane. 

As we came into the city limits, the snow started falling again. Forecasts call for a few to several inches to fall today and tonight. We will cross our fingers that our flight takes off on time — and hopefully, with us on it this time.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Let’s start with a poll. How would you pronounce the following word: Touchet. Would you say:

Too-SHAY, as in the French

TUH-shee, as in one’s derriere

TOUCH-it, if you were pretending not to understand French pronounciation

TOO-shee, just to put that option in the list (read, I have nothing witty to say about this)

If you picked the last choice, you win! The town of Touchet, Washington, is pronounced TOO-shee. Susanne and I wondered about “touch it” because we had driven through Havre, Montana, on the way into town, which the locals pronounce “HAVE-er. French, what’s that? No worries, they can call their villages whatever they like. Just don’t expect that out-of-towners will have any clue how to replicate the name.

Paper Mill

Driving on Route 12 through Touchet toward the setting sun, you will at some point intersect the very pretty Columbia River. Unfortunately for the river, near the port of Walla Walla sits a paper mill and a slaughterhouse. For olfactory reasons I refuse to slow down long enough to investigate which of these creates the smell I am about to describe, or if there is some awful marriage of odors that creates such a cesspool of particulate that hangs in the air on the roadway, waiting for people to drive through, like an ambush of molecules. For there I am, traveling at 60 mph, looking at the pretty river and the still-fascinating windmill towers lined up on the tops of the hills, and then it hits me. It’s like three tons of broccoli were allowed to slowly rot and decay, the green of the flowerettes turning yellow and then brown, liquefying in a mass of death and abandonment. Paper mill my ass. I call it the Bad Broccoli plant, because honestly, it doesn’t smell like turned lettuce or sausage or groundhog. It’s bad broccoli. We make sure to shut off the air conditioning, close the windows, and then we cross our fingers and hope for the best.

And yes, it’s the only road out of town in that direction. So perhaps I should call it the Bad Broccoli Plant of Inevitability.

I think I’ve mentioned before that there is a whole different concept of space out here west of the Ye Ole Mississippi. That is, space has space here. There’s no bragging about one’s luxury 800 sq. ft. apartment. No sucking in your gut to pass a person with a grocery cart in the aisle of your local market. No squeezing by the jackass in the H2 on 9th Street Northeast when you’re just trying to get home after an annoying day at work, and they’re trying to break the land speed record for an oversized SUV.

Out here, they don’t know what to do with all the space. Small plots of land grow wheat. Drive-in movie theaters are not an extinct species like they are back east. Abandoned buildings sit and slowly crumble for years because there’s no hurry to use their old footprints for the next gentrification effort. Actually, they wouldn’t know a gentrifying neighborhood if it bit them on their collective butts, even though we all know that gentrifying neighborhoods go out of their way to get all bitey and nasty.

I can’t remember the last time I saw a bus, come to think of it. There are a couple of those trolleys on tires that roam around the downtown, especially on the weekends, when downtown looks particularly picturesque.

Small glimpse of a beautiful car

Adding to the picturesqueness of this weekend was a classic car show that occupied most of Main Street by the farmer’s market. All of the angle parking was taken up with about 100 cars from the 1950s through the 1970s, yet there was still plenty of street parking for the folks who came to see the cars. That wouldn’t have happened on even a Wednesday morning in DC. That’s how much space they have.

Everything that we’re used to on the East Coast has its component over here, but the counterpart here comes with a “drive-thru” option, in case you’re too damn lazy to get out of your car. There are, in no apparent order:

Drive-through pharmacies

Drive-through espresso shops

Drive-through supermarkets

Drive-through auto parts stores

Still to discover are drive-through furniture stores, but they can’t be far behind.

In case you don’t have a problem with commitment and instead prefer to drive-in and hang around for a while, there are plenty of drive-in restaurants, and I’m not just talking about A&W. Fast Eddie’s here in Walla Walla was presented to us after I was whining that I wanted a malt. They had 20 flavors of milkshakes and malts on the menu — and by “menu,” I mean oversized white board that doubled as a sun-blocking device while you’re sitting in your car with the food on your window, like Fred Flintstone in the show opener. While I wouldn’t actually call them fast per se, for it took about 15 minutes to get a burger, hot wings, and two shakes (my craving was contagious, apparently), the food was tasty and the eating-in-the-car novel, at least for now. There weren’t serving on roller skates, but at the Sonic in Richland, they are.

For Jody -- a 1965 Mustang

We drove down into Pendleton, Oregon, to see what was there and to check out a restaurant we learned about last week. We picked the wrong time of day for the eatery, since it wouldn’t open for a few hours, but we got to see the town a bit. Pendleton is pretty well known for its wool blankets and other fabrics, at least say Susanne and my mother. And I am not about to disagree with either one of them! Pendleton also hosts a rodeo Round Up every year in September. We found a quilting shop, a caramel popcorn shop, used bookstore, and loads of western wear stores. I may have to pick up a cowboy hat at some point. Not sure if black or white is more my style, though.

Since Raphael’s was closed, we ate at the Hamley Steakhouse, which tells a lot of the history of Hamley & Co., which was very tasty and very cowboy. We actually sat right next to the old bank counter front of the First National Bank, which was held up by Butch Cassidy and the Kid — that was pretty cool. I don’t think of Oregon as the old west, but I suppose it was here. Silly northeasterner, am I. Susanne put back most of a plate of baby back ribs and I went for a medium-rare gaucho-style rib eye steak. Definitely recommended if you find yourself in Pendleton. Though I’d stay away on Sundays, since most everything else is closed.

Hey, they like to enjoy the space around here, okay?

Classic Car show in Walla Walla

Last day in Seattle included a run to the tourist section of Pike Place to get some Dilettante chocolates. Oh, they are so good, even if the service there is a tad worse than spotty. Go ahead and serve them with a frown, I’ll be a truffle-eating monster later. Plus, one Seattle kid being semi-hostile is still nothing like the open disdain and service of frustration one receives in most of DC, so these folks don’t actually impress me at this point. I’m sure I’ll reset my service parameters at some point and then the trips to the big cities out here will leave me shocked and confused. But for now I shrug them off. I shrug you off, mean chocolate lady!

We stopped in at Lush right after, which was amusing for the fact that another staffer at Dilettante was in there complaining to the Lush staff that Chris Rock had come in for a mocha and decried the bad service there and stormed out.

See? It’s not just me. Even CELEBRITIES suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous service there.

Lunch was nice, consisting of a big bowl of brown rice and spiced lamb.

Bowl-a-Rama lunch

Tasty, and $7.50 to boot. DC could use more little shops like that. So could Walla Walla, for that matter.

We passed by Barneys which had the oddest little window display I’ve ever seen. Feel free to offer opinions and analysis on this:

The train is coming at Barneys

Okay, what is up with this? Also notice the tormentor — a woman with a villain mustache. So beware the transgender person? Or, we had to mark her as the evil one in this picture because the guy tied to the train tracks with the oncoming engine wasn’t enough to clue us in?

And why is there a pump bottle of soap on her head? 

Barney, Barney, Barney, you’ve gone a bit off the rails yourself, haven’t you? Must be that constant comparison to the annoying purple dinosaur.

We went out for dinner later at Ray’s Boathouse in a completely different corner of the city, and the fish was truly amazing. I ate my weight in mussels for the first course, which were drenched in a spicy tomatoesque bisque, and had a sweet fillet of sablefish atop grilled baby bok choy and delicate rice. Oh, eating quality seafare is so nice, even if it means Susanne has to miss the fun. But I’ll keep it to a minimum, since I do enjoy my dining partner more than what I’m eating.

A quiet evening when we got back, I got up in the morning and chatted with my friend who was hosting me for this trip, and said goodbye to her adorable feline. Found Susanne at what seems quite a patchwork of an airport, and we headed back to Walla Walla. As sure enough, we left the clouds behind as we passed through the Cascades again. Note to Washington State Transportation — your road sure is pretty, but can’t you make it quieter? I’m getting hearing loss making this 290-mile trip!

Kiwi the Cat

Ah, Seattle. When first I spied you in the summer of 2005, you gave me day upon day of warm sunshine, making it seem as though your tendency toward rain was all myth and bunk. It was a wonderful romance we had, and I’ll never forget it.

Sunny Seattle

Yet like so many flings begun without thought for the long-term, we soured, and this time, you’re grouchy, distant, mad about something you won’t communicate. And you rain, rain, rain, barely getting into the high 70s, so that I feel your chill down to my bones. Where did we go wrong, Seattle? How could I have offended you so much that you feel this is your choice, to be so unforgiving? I wanted to live in your confines; your state gave me the other corner instead. I’m doing the best I can, honoring your lakes and your downtown, reveling in your curvy streets and dynamic nightlife. I’ve attempted to support your economy as a faithful visitor, and if you’re a little nicer to me I promise I shall return many times. Unless that’s not what you want.

View from Lake Washington

Don’t push me out, Seattle. Let’s try to start over.

It’s been great, weather notwithstanding, to be back here, visiting an old friend from graduate school, and making little forays into the city. My bad knee is definitely hampering me too much, but I’m doing what I can and I certainly look forward to the day when I can run around a city again, sniffing out the fun offerings and things to see. 

Susanne is out on the other coast at a conference and we’ll rendezvous tomorrow at the airport before heading back to Wallyworld for its annual Fair and Frontier Days. Insert picture of Susanne sneezing at all of the livestock, and heck, maybe we’ll head out of town again and do some exploring at a few of the local apple and pear vineyards. I sure would love to bake a fruit pie and try to make the kitchen feel more like home.

Getting from these separate corners of the state — and there’s a whole lot of nothing in parts of the middle, for sure — is mostly achieved via one mountain pass, which shuts down frequently in winter. It’s not exactly reassuring to see “Chain Tie-On Area” signs and “Grade 5% next 2 miles.” The road in summer seems straightforward enough, though I wouldn’t chance it without brakes you’re sure will work well. And it’s a great view, though I don’t think that’s Mount Rainier we can see off to the west, but some other less tall peak. I need to research that.

I wandered around town yesterday, amused that there’s a neighborhood here called Capitol Hill. They’re very proud of their neighborhood name, and it must have some cache, because you see it everywhere.

Trader Joe's

Later I drove down to the Pike Place Market, looking for some fun window shopping, but primarily looking for a parking spot under $10. It was not to be found in the walking distance I can currently handle. And I’m sad to say that Dilettante Chocolates has closed its Capitol Hill location, but only temporarily as it opens a new shop down the street next month. Still, I need to procure some on this trip, so I’ll venture out to the one downtown later today. 

In the afternoon I met up with my friend and we shared a bit of ethiopian take out at park on Lake Washington. In the east nobody would be out in the water in weather like this — we love our warm Atlantic, even if it does produce awful hurricanes and tropical storms. The Pacific just never seems to heat up over here. But hey, native Seattle-ites will run down the feet-slicing rocky shores, climb up onto a floating dock, and springboard off into the icy water, loving every minute of it. I look on in horror and amazement. And once again feel like I’ve ventured into some foreign country over here. Everyone is so used to needing their black leather jackets and faded jeans they don’t actually change into something else when the temperature is 95F. They just go about their business sweating their asses off, and man, it has got to produce some funky leather smells after a while. So perhaps a dip in the frigid lake works for them after that, who knows. But the water looked pretty, and I really like it when busy cities have their leisurely parts. And Seattle seems to have plenty.

Two boys with Pith helmets

Here are some more photos of Lang on my Flickr account:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/evmaroon/sets/72157606911832888/

And here are some shots driving through Montana:

Montana mountains

I’ve only seen things like that in photos on well meaning but irritating motivational posters. Quite another thing to see them in real life, I can attest.

Prairie and clouds

Again, even though the prairie got somewhat monotonous, it was still incredible and all that sky!

Montana as a storm rolls in

This was the start of a storm that I mentioned in a previous post. We got to see quite a light show up in the Rocky Mountains at real western saloon place named Trixie’s, where Susanne used the one and only outhouse we saw on our trip. I asked how it was and she rolled her eyes at me, because isn’t that OBVIOUS. Well, yes, it is. But as I wasn’t going to use it myself — I think I’d rather die of a bladder explosion — I only had her eyewitness testimony to describe it for me. So I’ll just go on my possibly condescending, limited stereotypes of outhouses to imagine the experience. Thanks a lot, Susanne. 😉

Now then, we left the picturesque West for entry into our new abode, which is best summed up thusly:

Our new toilet

Let’s just say we’re cleaning and unpacking and it’s a bit overwhelming but we’re getting there. Baby steps, people, baby steps. Will post more later about a few things we’ve done since showing up in this town.

Next up: Walla Walla farmer’s market, our first trip to Sonic, and a speech by Chris Gregoire.