October 22 & 23, 2015 | #ontheroad1015 (previous post)
I was a child in the 90’s, but my sister was a teenager and with minimal parental supervision Seattle pop culture was downloaded into my brain pre-double digits. I knew of Nirvana and Kurt Cobain, I watched Kurt Loader read MTV news and my favorite season of Real World to this day is Seattle. My attraction to the opposite sex was shaped by a sexy zombie Brandon Lee in The Crow. And I had watched Reality Bites and Singles before I could understand most of the jokes. From video dating and garage door openers to complicated post-college love affairs – I was really learning my early lessons in love. Then as I grew into my own teenagedom, I fell in love with Seattle-based movie “10 Things I Hate About You” and as my angst grew so did my desire to live where it rains 80% of the year.
At some point, my obsession and depression subsided and I became less Seattle-bound as I entered my twenties. But when Dan and I went on our Pacific Northwest road trip, all my pop culture Seattle obsessions were ignited and I had to see all the sites. (insert Pokemon theme song – “gotta catch em all”)
Dan was already a big Seattle fan and I had my reservations as I now appreciate the sun. But when we were there I could see us living in Seattle. If it wasn’t for it’s notorious “Seattle Freeze”, the term for the fact no one in Seattle wants to be your friend, it would be one of my top choices. But so far Austin, Denver, and Louisville are beating out Seattle as potential relocation destinations.
Here is the documentation of my pop culture Seattle over two days.
We also had an incredibly awkward Airbnb experience that you can hear all about in the videos after the jump.
I find mushrooms to be so magical! I remember being fascinated by their sudden appearance in our front lawn and learning about the unique bio-makeup of fungus in school. One of my earlier memories was my dad making sure I knew NOT to eat wild mushrooms on our front lawn and only mushrooms from grocery stores. I love the various formations mushrooms grow in, and I think their spectrum of toxicity is so mystical. Mushrooms are so witchy wonderful and when we were on our Pacific Northwest road trip I had the opportunity to see so many unique mushrooms growing in the wild. I don’t know the names of any of the mushrooms I found, and Bowerbird did try to identify a few although I wouldn’t dare try to eat any without proper mushroom education. If I ever moved to the PNW or Northern California where wild mushrooms flourish, I think I’d become a mushroom hunter, spending my weekends hiking around to see what new fungi I could discover.
The following photos were taken while on a hike up Mt. Ellinor in Washington and a trail in the Redwoods National Forrest.
October 17, 2015 | Pt. 1 of Day 3 of #ontheroad1015 ( previous post )
After an amazing night out with Bowerbird’s pal drinking and eating at Cavalier, I had to wake up early the next morning to do some work. While Bowerbird slept, I got ready for the day and followed up on emails and scheduled content for my clients. After Bowerbird woke up he decided to be a sweetheart and walk over to Blue Bottle coffee down the street and pick us up some good black brew, he left and I continued to work. Twenty minutes later, he returned to the hotel room frustrated as he couldn’t find the coffee shop. We both hate google maps and how it decides to change directions on a whim or decide to say you’ve arrived when you’re still 500 feet away from your destination. So I understood his frustration and pulled out my phone in order to get a better sense of where the coffee shop was on the map. Staring out our hotel window, together we finally figured out where Blue Bottle was located. So he went down for round two of mission “Blue Bottle Coffee”. I continued to work.
Twenty minutes later, Bowerbird returns even more aggravated and stressed. He had waited in the long line at Blue Bottle, only to discover his wallet was missing at the crash register. When he got back to the hotel room, the wallet was fortunately left on the bed and obviously our blue bottle experience was not going well. Bowerbird ate a Luna bar as we both sipped on crappy hotel room coffee, waiting for me to finish working and we could grab a bite at Cowgirl Creamery. One of the most delicious cheese makers EVER!
Spam spotted on our walk to Blue Bottle Coffee
Our friend had told us that the Blue Bottle location next to our hotel was the absolute best, so hoping third times the charm, after I was done working we walked to Blue Bottle together. The line was ridiculously long and as time was running out, we decided to give up and just walk to Cowgirl Creamery inside the Ferry Building. It’s important for me to note that there is no parking in San Francisco. It’s not a very street parking friendly city, so we decided to walk everywhere in order to save money. We had decided to leave our car parked at the hotel and just be charged for hotel overnight parking. And since I didn’t want to pay for any additional hours outside of our hotel stay, it was really important we left the parking structure by check-out time (noon).
The Ferry Building was a 25 to 30-minute walk from our hotel. I love the architecture in San Francisco. I feel like the city was built for me! The entire city was interesting and captivating, the wires and cranes. I could wander around that city for days. The Ferry Building was AWESOME!! I have yet to visit Grand Central Market in Downtown LA, but I have a feeling it might be like the Ferry Building. Vendors were pushing large carts filled with fresh produce. I snapped a blurry photo of a man holding two ginormous heads of lettuce up to his ears as he moved through the crowd. There was an entire section devoted to mushrooms. I was completely awe-struck and falling in mad foodie love.
We found Cowgirl Creamery and order a grilled cheese and cheese platter. While I waited for the food, Bowerbird hopped on over to Blue Bottle to stand in line for coffee. At this point, there was no way we were leaving San Francisco, let alone go on in our day, with our proper *caffeination from flipping Blue Bottle. I found him in line and we devoured our warm grilled cheese. I honestly don’t remember what it tasted like, but I’ll assume good. Then I abandoned Bowerbird to explore the Ferry Building more and drop off my fun postcards. I fell in love with this adorable cake and sweets shop called Miette, where I picked up my nieces and nephew gummy brains and pumpkins for Halloween. By the way, I’m terrible at buying souvenirs and feel I’m failing as an aunt, but more on that later.
After Bowerbird had our coffees we headed outside to scarf down the rest of our cheese platter, because as I looked at the clock we only had 30 minutes before check out. Oh and our hotel is a 30 minute walk away!! I feel like Bowerbird and I are pro-sightseers, we try to absorb as much of our atmosphere as possible, like dry thirsty sponges that found a puddle in the desert. So we walked back through the Ferry Building making mental notes of our surrounding and snapped a few photos of it from across the street, then we walked as fast as our legs could carry us. We only stopped if the intersection was red, throwing caution to the wind if only the hand was red. Checking my phone periodically to see what our estimated time of arrival was, just as we gained time we lost it because we stopped to take pictures of the architecture. We managed to get to our hotel, out of breath, ten minutes before check out. Running up to our hotel room, I grabbed my client’s products to shoot in the lobby and Bowerbird took our bags down to the car. We were back on the road by 12:15pm.
Please check out the vlog I made of our adventure to the Ferry Building. I still dream of that hall of wonders.
*caffienation – is not a real word, but it is today!
