the rest of seattle

So that took a little longer than expected. I didn't intend to spend almost two weeks in Seattle, but I came down with... something... on about the 4th of July, and that pretty well impeded progress south for most of the last week. I can think of worse places to be stuck than Seattle during a "heat wave" (which still didn't match regular daily temps on the east coast for this time of year), and aside from my GI tract's attempted mutiny, it was a good time.

The weekend of the 4th was spent at parties, meeting for beers, and otherwise running around in my preferred fashion. Like most good weekends, it began on Thursday. Happy hour (and seeing a Pink Elephant car wash sign) turned into dropping Brendan off at band practice into picking Anne's brother Dave up at the airport into Libuse (not pronounced in the manner a native English-speaker might expect) joining for some pub food and beers into late-night wine drinking and multiple rounds of mac-and-cheese and late-waking-up for breakfast with Dana in the morning, all as illustrated below:











(Moxie the cat did not wholly approve.)






Four butts in a one-butt kitchen:





That all quickly dissolved into an evening spent sharing and exchanging pictures from the trip to Denver with the crew I joined for the trip to Seattle. Luke has an amazing house and a great garage. I would have taken more pictures, but the camera's battery died at a rather inconvenient time.








... which is as well. It eventually ended in me not keeping up with Andrew and Jersey Mike (in the pink on gray shirt above) during a... umm... spirited late-night ride through downtown Seattle.

I awoke the next morning to meet Iko and Jenna for breakfast at Smarty Pants, which was entirely excellent.



Pretty coffee swirl:



Corned beef and hash, heavy on the corned beef, light on the hash:




Our watiress's ride:



(She got a good tip.)


Then off to the farmer's market, cheese and chocolate shopping, helmet decoration, and the original version of my favorite sticker ever...






Then a party, a little sleep, a lot of prep for Anne and Brendan's party, the party itself, and eventually ending up on a houseboat on Lake Union for the fireworks. It's just as confused as it sounds.


What do these people have to do with each other? Nothing, other than that they all know me.




Anne and Brendan's back yard, full of yard games:




And fireworks...













(Until there were no more fireworks left.)

There are more firework pictures in the Flickr album. Too many to link here.


Then Anne got sick. Then I got sick. Then Brendan got sick. Awesome. Most of the next four days were spent laying down, feeling ill. Not so many pictures.

Despite that, we did make a few trips out.

We got stuck in traffic at Pike Place.




We saw this apparently super-creepy church with the most stylish church sign I've ever seen.




I saw an old W113 Benz, like my old 230, but blue.




We had what were apparently super-good fish and chips.




Other things, too.


Finally, yesterday, I bolted for Portland. Only I didn't make Portland. I got stuck in traffic on I-5 instead. It took three hours to go less than 80 miles. It was 90-plus degrees out. Awesome.

When I hit Olympia, I'd had enough. I bolted for the coast. Temperatures fell, roads opened up, and everything was right again. Passing a huge line of cars and the camper that was leading that train at roughly the speed of sound, I realized I'd made an excellent decision.

Leaving Washington...




Entering Oregon...




Finally attached my ZKMC sticker to the bag.




Oregon coast.




And then came sunset.








(Dear god.)


After killing half the bugs in Oregon and seeing a "DANGER: ELK" sign, at midnight I decided to call it a night in Newport. Found a hotel, showered, crashed.

Now onward. More Oregon coast awaits.