We took a three-week road trip around the Pacific Northwest in the summer of 2017, and I am recounting our trip in a series of blog posts. You can read the previous posts here: Ashland, Portland, Bellingham, Vancouver
Days 12-13: Seattle, Washington
As much as I would like to report that every minute of our road trip was full of magical adventures, sex on mountaintops and aspirational, hashtaggable Millennial moments, that would be a lie. Before we set out on this journey, I had a picture in my mind of what road-tripping through the PNW with our dog would be like: Me (tanner and skinnier) with perfectly wind-tousled hair tucked under a beanie, wearing a cozy yet figure-flattering puffer jacket, gazing out towards a rocky seashore clutching a tin coffee mug (“Catch the Wild” or some other bullshit is written on the side in cool font) as a thin curl of steam rises from it. Alex, looking equally sexy, would be holding me close to keep me warm and Cosmo, sitting quietly beside us, would turn his head to look in our eyes and say, “I love us”.
There were plenty of incredible moments on our road trip (even though Cosmo never learned the power of human speech), but not every minute was picture perfect. In fact, a lot of the time it looked like this:
I am so fucking majestic.
Remember when I wrote in this post about how much I loved Portland, and how my own pleasant state of mind at the time influenced how I experienced that particular city? Well, the opposite could be said about my experience in Seattle. I was in a full-blown FUNK while we were in Seattle and it has definitely impacted how I remember our time in the city.
12 days into this trip, I was starting to feel the beginnings of homesickness or something like it. By the time we hit Seattle, I think that the daily logistics of road-tripping were starting to weigh on us. I have shared some beautiful pictures on this blog of our exciting adventures, and it all looks very fun and carefree doesn’t it? Well, like a lot of stuff on the internet, these beautiful photos don’t exactly convey the whole story. In truth, 50% of our trip involved time spent performing duties that revolved around one or more of the following:
- Parking the car
- Loading the car
- Unloading the car
- Deciding what stays in the car
- Deciding what comes inside our accommodations
- Does Cosmo need to poop/pee/eat/drink?
- Do we need to poop/pee/eat/drink?
- Gas
- Google Maps
- Water bottles: buying them, refilling them, accidentally leaving them places, buying more.
- “Where is the_____?” (Or its sister: “Did you bring the______?”)
A few of these were compounded on the first day we reached Seattle when, after a very long drive on an unseasonably hot day, we finally arrived at our Airbnb in Capitol Hill. We struggled at first with parking in the neighborhood and struggled again with obtaining the keys to our accommodations from an ancient lock box. With the sun beating down on us, Alex on the phone with our Airbnb host, and me trying to help pry open the lockbox with one hand on our dog’s leash, Cosmo chose to let out his frustrations by taking a huge (for him) dump on the front steps of the condo complex. The poop bags were in our car which was parked very far away, and I started to feel the beginnings of an adult tantrum forming at the base of my neck.
I was mostly annoyed with myself for feeling even the slightest tinge of unhappiness while on this amazing vacation. To me, being less than ecstatic 100% of the time was unacceptable. The opportunity to even go on a trip like this is a privilege, and I felt like such a brat for letting these minor inconveniences get to me.
Eventually, we gained access to our Airbnb and I was momentarily revived. It was clean, roomy, well-appointed, and cozy. If it were up to me (and thankfully it wasn’t), I probably would have just stayed inside and reorganized the closets for two days.
This is all to explain why I don’t actually have a lot to say about our time in Seattle. My own sour attitude made it impossible for the city to leave any lasting impression on me, no matter how hard it tried. I hope Seattle will give me a second chance someday.
And before I make it seem like Alex dragged me behind him around Seattle like a mopey Eeyore, let me conclude this post with a list of the things I remember really enjoying about our visit to Seattle:
- It rained on the second day and it felt like the most Seattle-y thing. I was grinning like an idiot.
- The coffee is really fucking good, which is also super Seattle-y, but there’s a reason why: the coffee is really fucking good. My favorite was Vivace.
- We went to a couple of really great cocktail bars, Foreign National and Herb & Bitter, that reminded me of some of my beloved local bars in LA.
- At a sushi restaurant one night, we met a very nice group of drunken revelers who told us all about how Macklemore shot one of his music videos at a bar down the street and other Macklemore-related trivia.
- This isn’t so much a uniquely Seattle thing, but one night we bought a box of Cracklin’ Oat Bran at the Capitol Hill QFC and ate it while watching The Office. That was fun.
Our next stop: Kalaloch, WA.
