Seattle

Hal and I arrived in Seattle on Tuesday after 2576 miles of driving.  Since then we have been involved in a whirlwind of shopping and trying to safely navigate the bizarre maze that is Seattle streets.  So far our apartment consists primarily of boxes and sleeping bags.  I'm on my way to the airport soon to pick up Colosimo - we're going to see DMB at the Gorge Ampitheatre (2.5 hours east of Seattle in the middle of nowhere, on the Columbia River Gorge) this weekend.  Once I get my life together, I'll post more details and pictures of our westward voyage and call Sharon (hi Sharon!).

Update from the road...

I'm in a coffee shop in Bozeman, MT right now, recovering from a 4-day backpacking trip in the Tetons and a day in Yellowstone. I'll be posting more details when I get to Seattle. Highlights include being chased by a moose in the Tetons, seeing a grizzly feeding on a bison in Yellowstone, and barely surviving South Dakota (an animatronic T-rex in Wall, SD was probably the most exciting thing we saw there). We're headed to Missoula tonight, and on to Seattle tomorrow!

Into the West

Hal and I are heading into the West tomorrow morning! Here's our semi approximate itinerary of where we envision ourselves for the next week:

8/17: Drive to Badlands, stopping at Corn Palace, Mitchell SD
8/18: Mt. Rushmore, hike Black Hills
8/19: Drive to Jackson, WY
8/20-8/24: Tetons, Yellowstone
8/25: Drive to Bozeman, MT
8/26: Drive to Seattle. Celebrate Hal's birthday.

New Apartment

Last week Hal and I went apartment shopping in Seattle and signed a lease on a 2br/2ba unit at Epi Apartments. The building is about 5 years old and includes a rooftop deck. It is located in the center of Fremont, aka the People's Republic of Fremont, aka the Center of the Universe, a neighborhood famous for its under-bridge troll, Lenin statue, and nude cyclists parade. While the neighborhood is often described as hippyish, don't think dirty hippies so much as hippies that work at companies like Adobe, Google, and Microsoft and like to eat organic food and talk about sustainability (our organic grocery store is conveniently next door to our building). Buses for downtown and the Microsoft Connector Shuttle pick up right outside, and we are about a block away from the Burke-Gilman bike trail, which I'll hopefully use to commute to work most days. My favorite venue of the neighborhood is Brouwer's, a pub featuring a large variety of imported Belgian beers and American craft beers on tap.

After claiming victory in our apartment search, I traveled to Vancouver via Greyhound bus to hang out with Heather and Stu. I don't recommend traveling to Canada via bus if you can avoid it (on the way back, we waited an hour and a half at customs; a 3 hour drive by car took about 6 hours by bus). I didn't feel too sorry for myself, though, since the girl I was sitting next to on the trip to Vancouver had just biked from Vancouver to Tijuana and was at the end of a 40-something hour bus trip back. On the way back, I was entertained/intimidated by the bus driver, played by Samuel L. Jackson. His name tag said something different, but I'm pretty sure it was SLJ in disguise and there were probably hidden cameras somewhere. I was waiting for him to say "I want these motherfucking cell phones off this motherfucking bus!" since he routinely threatened to kick people off the bus for talking too loudly on cell phones.

Bottom line: our new apartment and neighborhood both rock. Fun catching up with friends in both Seattle and Vancouver. [Picasa]