Northwest fun

I feel repetitious because I rave about everywhere we visit, but Seattle is really cool too! I was obsessed with all the homes built into the hillside as you come into town. It felt unlike any town I’ve ever visited. European maybe. I’m still confused about the Space Needle, however. I don’t really understand what it does. I’d never heard of it, which appalled Derek, because it is supposedly the famous tourist attraction of Seattle. But Derek doesn’t know what the point of it is either (no pun intended) , which proves my point. Anyway, Jamie, Eric Meissner’s girlfriend, who I now think of as a friend independent of Eric because she’s awesome, took us to a local pub to get some microbrews while we waited for Eric to get off work once we arrived in Seattle. She told us there is a homeless man named TB Guy who lives in the garden area of their apartment complex and throws bricks at people. Luckily, we didn’t run into him. As we were sitting at the pub, a truck stopped in front of the building (we were sitting outside) and a guy started screaming at a man who was probably an alcoholic, sitting at the table across from us. All I heard was “Your padlock’s changing tonight!,” then he flipped the bird. I’m assuming the alchy man hasn’t paid rent in awhile and that was his landlord. Freak watching is pretty fun in Seattle too. Eric showed up shortly after and told us about the Code Brown that had happened at the hospital earlier that day. There is no need for me to explain what that is, but if you use your common sense, you can figure it out, and it is very unpleasant. We played with Eric’s pet toads when we returned to their apartment. And the next morning we went to a coffee shop, and there was a floral design in the froth of my latte when they handed it to me! Long story short, we had a fabulous time.

Omigod, I forgot to tell you that we left Lowrider with a petsitter because Eric’s apartment is adamantly against pets. I had spoken with the woman whose home we were leaving the pup at earlier in the week to make arrangements. We arrived to drop him off and realized that she and her husband were both blind! I’m also certain they were the kindest, most dog-loving people we’ve ever met, so I felt confident in our plan. Nonetheless, a noteworthy experience.

We are now on the road in Oregon. Because the drive was only to be around 6 hours, we decided to tour Oregon wineries on our way. We are now 3 wineries deep, 4 bottles of wine poorer (richer!), and happily driving down the interstate. Clearly I am not driving.