Seattle Stories

Posting from the Fog Belt town of Forks, WA. along the 101 highway. I was hoping to make it through the entire Washington state coastline today, but I got started later then usual and when the temperature dropped in the Olympic National Park, I figured it was time to pack it in for the day and get me a room.

The earlier part of the day was spent in Seattle, but let's go back even further to Saturday. After my last post (if you've not read Saturday's post below, you should), I walked the streets of Seattle, and took more photos (here's a few of them now):

Later, I met up with my friend Lance who took me over to Georgetown, a cool little industrial neighborhood where many of Seattle's artists are apparently moving to these days (though none of these images aree of Georgetown, they're all from the downtown and immediate surrounding areas).

Seattle is a great city, and a great city to photograph. I had such great fun trying to capture images of this town. It was a little difficult to get what I wanted given the limitations of my camera, but I got a few shots I'm happy with.



So in Georgetown, Lance and I met up with Robin (his wife) their 2 daughters and a friend named Tim. We had pizza, the first time I've even attempted pizza since leaving NYC. I have to say it was pretty good. But more importantly, it was great fun just hanging around a pizza shop, talking tattoos, addiction, the pressures of growing up, and life in general, while listening to a fantastic jukebox that didn't hit one bad song all night.
Afterwards, Lance gave me a ride back to my hotel and we had a great talk about events in our lives, and how we're dealing with things in general. It's always good for me to have a little one-on-one time with someone who grapples with some of the same issues I do. I always find something of myself in the struggle of others, which is why it helps when I listen as much as I talk. Lance gave me a terrific quote, which I think goes like this ... "never miss an opportunity to keep your mouth shut." I should get that tattooed on the inside of my eyelid.

My Seattle adventures didn't end there. Sunday morning I hooked up with my great good friend Melanie's cousin Chris and his wife Sarah and their two young kids. We met at Glo's (I was told I had to eat breakfast at Glo's by Lance's daughter, McKenzie. She works there, though not this Sunday, but she said I had to go there and have the eggs benedict - when in a new town, I do as I'm told by the locals. I can report the eggs benedict at Glo's on Olive Way is damn tasty, if you're ever in Seattle ...).

After the wait for a table, the eating of the food and the talking in between, Sarah said we should ride over to West Seattle so I could check out where they live. I followed them on the bike over the bridge and in 10 minutes we went from the middle of the city to a nicely done lakeside town. This city is great for this kind of thing. It's large enough to have the right energy of a city, yet small enough that you can get to a wide range of landscapes quickly. In NYC you'd have to drive an hour or more to get to the kind of beach we walked along today so quickly. I suppose I might get a little bored with the smallness of the city after a while, but on a visit it seemed like a damn good place to hang around and there's enough diversity to keep things interesting for at least a while. If I ever voluntarily disappear, you can check Seattle if you want to find me ... I might hide out there.

OK - so now it's mid-afternoon and I say my goodbyes and jump back on the bike, shoot back to the hotel and collect my gear (they were nice enough to hold my stuff for me so I didn't have to worry about parking the bike somewhere and having my gear ripped off).

I rolled out of town around 2:30 or so and headed south on I-5, down to Olympia, WA, then onto US-101 North to go up to Port Angeles, a pilgrimage of sorts as Raymond Carver, the great short story writer lived there. I am a big fan of his stories and thought if I'm this close to where the man lived and wrote, I might as well drive through to get a sense of place. Besides, US-101 is going to be my road for the next week and I thought I might as well take it from the very beginning.

The ride through lake towns and mountains was just beautiful. The temperature dipped from 80 degrees to down around 65 at one point. Luckily, I had on my new woolen long johns (though I was a bit overdressed in the earlier part of the day, I was glad to have them on throughout the late afternoon and into the evening).

For the next week or so I'll be in cool weather, probably the coolest of the entire trip with daily highs along the coast of WA, OR and northern CA only getting into the mid-60's (which means I'll be riding along with some 50's earlier in the day and then again later on in the early evenings). But this promises to be some of the most beautiful scenery of my whole trip. The Oregon coast, down into California should be awesome. Then in CA, I'll go through the Redwoods (which I've not seen) as well as San Francisco (which I've also not seen before), so I'm looking forward to the next few days of riding.

That's about it for now. Be sure to check out the below post if you haven't already, it recounts my last day in Montana, my days in Spokane, the trip into Seattle and my first few hours there, as well as some more photos.

Last thing - I took this shot today in the town of Eldon, WA. A while back I was in a town called Douglas and saw a similar sign, I regretted not taking a picture then, so I turned around when I saw this one and figured it was a must have. And for those who may not know this, the D in DJ stands for Douglas, while the last name of Eldon, stands for Eldon. A few minutes up the road from here I stopped for gas and took a leak, so I took something from there and left something else behind (I know you didn't need to know that ... but it's done).

The next post will be from somewhere along the Oregon coast. Til then ...