seattle

... is completely beautiful. Mindblowingly so, in places, and for reasons I cannot explain. I love cities. I love concrete and steel and industry and traffic (as long as it's moving). Blasting through a tunnel in the mountains feels wrong on some level, but diving into a concrete cavern and setting the engine to full-howl, only disturbing traffic and buildings and whatever else is above... that works. That is good. That's like heaven, even amidst squalor.

I'd forgotten the feeling of coming down Snoqualmie Pass on I-5, feeling like the world is falling away completely, and how much longer can the road sustain this dropoff? A long, long way. There are other, taller, longer, steeper passes in the world, but none plunge so quickly, four-lanes-wide, down practically into the ocean. The drama lies in the ordinariness, as cages and trucks and god knows what all else all come screaming out of the Cascades, business as usual.

Drivers here are courteous to a fault. I've run red lights when the bike won't set the forward trigger and the cage behind leaves such a margin that it misses the rear trigger. Rather than closing holes in traffic as I approach, cages open them. Being given a berth is a weird luxury.

Speaking of weird luxuries, so is sleep. And good food when on the road. Both of which have been provided in abundance. My general dislike of things and cynicism are foundering in the midst of such generosity and good spirit.

The road calls, but I like it here, and I have to wonder whether I might return at the end of this little venture. I know it's not really this shiny, and I know it's not really this great, but nowhere is, and this place seems better than most. That's getting ahead of myself though. I have a few more days here before I start making my way south, through Oregon, through California, and eventually to Mexico for a short minute, so I may as well make the most of them. Those places may hold more amazing, wonderful things to captivate me, so the effort invested in resisting the temptation to call the rest of this thing off and set up shop here for the summer will hopefully be met with some reward. Still, bike maintenance done (for now), there are parties to attend and people to see. And maybe a nap.

Anyway, I have taken pictures, if not as many as before, so here you go...

Anne and Brendan put me up for the night when I first got here (and most of the nights since), gave me beer, and fed me delicious fish tacos. Unfortunately, no pictures, because the camera was as tired as I was.

I slept most of the next day, found internet at Bronwyn's coffee shop, then met Andrew to get dinner and check out the super-cool yacht he lives on. Unfortunately, I have no pictures of the yacht either, because it's very hard to take pictures of a 50 foot yacht when you can get no more than five feet away without something else blocking it. He does also have super-cool cars though:





... as well as super-cool bikes:




The Lock & Keel, which has a good selection of delicious beers and apparently smokes its own meats (which were also delicious):




Sunset, start to finish:














The next couple of days were spent on day rides and pickleball and tacos and hanging out and trivia night and more good sunsets and what all else I can't remember. I also changed my oil.




































And in all of those, I just keep coming back to the sky. It's amazing, almost always.

(Those are as-shot, by the way. No color enhancement. No contrast. No nothing.)

More of Seattle awaits, and there's no sense wasting time while I'm on the far end of the continent. More soon. I'm off.