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| A view from the back porch of my host's house of Mt. Rainer |
I had been to Seattle before. February 2014, to be exact. I
was there to check it out, as it was my last location I was going to move to
(aside from a brief idea bout Phoenix in, which died disastrously and lead me to idea to vagabond in
search of a city) until my girlfriend I was going to stay with until I got
settled had a life altering event and moved home to Boston. I was so ready to
go, in fact, that the car I have now was purchased August 1, 2014 in
anticipation of the move I was to make six weeks later. Life had other plans, I
guess.
When my girlfriend left Seattle and I considered Phoenix,
brimming with delight by the fact I was eating ice cream outside in the sun in
February, she said, "Well, maybe Seattle really isn't sunny enough for
you." I believed her, but just to be sure I didn't want to live in
Seattle, I decided to revisit it.
That being said, when I arrived, I didn't have any
particular plans in mind. Go with the flow, mainly. I wanted to check out Tinderings to see what
dating life was like in the area and how locals felt about the city. And I was also thrilled to not have to spend my favorite holiday alone.
Friday, 11/20, I did nothing. It was amazing. Saturday, Dave wanted to take me hiking near his house and to see a local waterfall.
First, the waterfall wasn't even sort of visible thanks to fog - though we did
stop for a cup of coffee at a local cafe before a day of fail, which was
delicious. And then we tried to go to the hiking trails, but they were blocked
by downed trees from the storm that rushed across Washington and Idaho (the
same one that trapped me in Couer D'Alene.), so the trails were close.
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| my appropriate 'adult' chair in the cafe with the best mexican chocolate coffee. yum, seattle coffee. |
The following day, we had big plans to go to Olympic
National Park. I had a thought that perhaps we should check what Mother Nature
had done for that route before he went on the two hour journey out there. And,
unfortunately, Mother Nature had blocked off the roads we needed to get there,
so that was out too. The weekend nights
found us at bars downtown, mostly pinball bars, as Dave is a huge pinball
player. (They have leagues even and apparently Seattle is the pinball capital.
Who knew?)
Since we weren't going to the park on Sunday, I took the
opportunity to go have dinner with a good friend of mine from DC days. We met
when she was sleeping on the dining room floor of a mutual friend of ours for
the summer while she had a internship before moving out to Seattle to get her
PhD. One of those people you immediately click with and no matter the time
that's past, you pick right back up where you left off. She's always a good
time and it was wonderful to see another familiar face. Quite refreshing after
so much time alone and away.
Monday rolled around and I have finally finalized my plans to go
home for Christmas. My mother had been bugging me about it since Moab. Since my
father got sick, she had to cancel her plans to meet me for a long weekend in
San Francisco. In exchange, she was trading in her tickets to fly me home for
the holidays. Unfortunately, flights were about $750 one way out of all of the
California airports. So I struck up a compromise to drive 1,200 miles out of my
way to Las Vegas for a $200 flight, and then the saved money could be used
to fly me down to Clearwater to see a middle school long friend of mine, whom I
have called Butthead forever. Butthead called a few weeks ago for a chat and
mentioned that maybe I could make it down to Florida since I didn't drive that
way and she had just moved there last year. Florida sounded wonderful after
having driven into an early winter. So, my mother booked my flights on her
cancelled trip for 12/24, 12/31 and 1/7 for LAS to PIT, PIT to TPA and TPA
(SAT) to LAS, respectively. And now, I have a schedule to meet again.
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