Hangin' In Seattle

I love the Pacific Northwest! Since I grew up in Oregon, coming to Washington always feels a little like coming home. It's been very interesting spending the last several months on the East Coast. There is definitely a difference in the day to day atmosphere of life between the two sides of this huge country of ours. I don't think I'm articulate enough to put it into words but anyone who has lived on both coasts knows what I'm talking about. Neither one is right or wrong, better or worse, just different. It's all in what you're used to, I guess, and except for my six years in Germany I have spent my life on the West Coast. I've lived in California, Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Arizona. Even though I spent more years in Arizona then in any of the other states my formative years were spent in the NW, so no matter where life takes me this will always be 'where I'm from'.

I arrived in Seattle on Wednesday last week and Nikki got here the next evening. On Saturday we toured the Boeing factory (Michael has worked at Boeing since early April). It was pretty cool to see the whole process of putting planes together. The assembly hangar is huge. It's divided into five different bays but the whole building is so big that you could put the entire Disneyland park inside of it and still have twelve acres left over for parking!

On Sunday Nikki, Shauna and I went to the Highland Games in Skagit County about an hour north of Seattle. Americans and Canadians of Scottish ancestry but the music was fairly authentic and they had lots of men in kilts throwing big heavy things so we could, at least, pretend we were in Scotland! That evening the three of us and Michael went to the Space Needle to oooo and ahhhh at the view of Seattle and the surrounding area from 520 ft up. We saw the Cascade mountains to the east and the Olympic mountains to the west. It was a really clear evening so Mt. Baker and Mt. Ranier were both visible. We watched the ferries cross Elliott Bay and looked through the telescope to Shauna's apt across Lake Union. We texted Steve at home so he and his friend, Josh, went up to the roof and waved like madmen at us. We waved back but I don't think they saw us back. We were up there long enough to watch the sun go down and see Seattle light up after dark.

Shauna lives on one side of Lake Union and her office is about three miles away on the other side of the lake. She jokes that if she owned a kayak commuting would be really easy! As it is, though, she usually walks (or takes the bus if the weather is bad). Nikki and I have walked her to work each day this week. It's a really nice walk there and back. We stop at the Starbucks around the corner for our morning coffee and just yak, yak, yak all the way to Google. About half of the way there and back is a walking/ biking path that hugs the perimeter of the lake. We are going to meet her at work this evening for dinner. Google feeds its employees (and their occasional guests) for free three times a day. BBQ ribs tonight! After dinner we'll meet Michael and Steve at Hale's Ales!

Amy moved way to the other side of Seattle so Nik and I haven't gotten to see her yet, but she is going to take Friday off (she works at Microsoft) and the three of us will go hiking.

This coming Saturday we are going back up to Skagit County to the annual Lavender Festival and then on Sunday we're going to do the Harbor Tour. Last time I was here it was Xmas and cold. Not the kind of weather in which to even think about going out on the water (brrrr!) but it's gorgeous this time of year!