After two weeks in Seattle, it’s time to hit the road again. I spent my last day with my friend Meishan, who I knew from a past life in LA. A life where I had hair. Blonde hair, at that. We drove around for most of the afternoon to random places that I can’t recall — lots of time by the water, and while I had an eye peeled for some Deadliest Catch boats, I failed to find them. (though that’s a bit of a needle in a haystack in seattle’s massive ports..)

I’ll miss Seattle, though it will be good to be in sun again, and in a reasonable rv park. The place I was staying in Bellevue was really sub-par. Basically a big parking lot jam-packed with crap RVs.

Ending on a positive note: Seattle is a cool place, and the pacific northwest is a great place to spend some time. Amazing scenery, outdoorsy, incredible beer, good people, and relaxing. What else do you need? (sun, maybe)

Washington

Seattle is a quirky town. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been hanging out with a Burning Man crowd a lot, but there always seems to be some wacky thing going on.

Apparently every year, there is an event called HonkFest in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle, which is.. definitely not like the Georgetown in DC. It’s more like the Brooklyn Navy Yard or something. Mostly industrial wasteland area turned artist loft neighborhood etc. At HonkFest, about 30 (or so?) marching bands take over the neighborhood, playing on the streets, in bars, in parking lots, etc. It’s hard to explain, so, I bring you the first ever chromenomad VIDEO:

HonkFest!

And some photos..

Washington

Since my arrival in the Seattle area, many people have asked me if I had met The Man.
“No,” I replied.
“Ahh, but you must,” they said.

Earlier this week, I met The Man.

The Man can be found at Dixie’s BBQ in Bellevue, WA. (and Dixie’s BBQ can be found in an old auto repair shop..)

Entering this shady looking BBQ joint, you initially wonder if you should really be eating here. It doesn’t look very clean. When you get to the serving area, you wonder even more. The food looks shady, the preparation area looks shady, and the staff look shady. There are soup nazi ordering techniques, and if you don’t know what you’re doing, head to the back of the line.

One of my dining companions asked, “Is the man here today?” and was met with silence.

After paying for our lunch, he asked again, “is he here?” The cashier said no at first, but then looked at her son, and told him to grab some guy out of the back to bring out “the sauce,” saying that “he can do it.” Apparently the normal person who can help you meet the man is not there, but there was a stand-in. We sat down at our table.

As I was trying to figure out to eat my sloppy chicken BBQ sandwich, a guy appeared from the back with a small sauce pan. He began walking around the eating area daring people to try his concoction, the “new cranberry recipe,” apparently. My friends flagged him down, and told him I was new. He celebrated my arrival, and dipped a toothpick into the saucepan and handed it to me. My friends said, “JUST TOUCH IT TO YOUR TONGUE, DO NOT PUT THE ENTIRE THING IN YOUR MOUTH.” What?

As my throat closed and my eyes welled up with tears, the only thing I could say was, “Holy shit.” I had met The Man.

And then our host plopped a spoonful of The Man on my sandwich. And then I had the most painful meal of my life. Stunt eating at its best. I don’t know what is in that sauce, but it is pure evil. Rumor has it that the pot that they make The Man in has never been washed, and that it possibly contains some sort of auto shop leftovers, maybe battery acid. Who knows. But my stomach will never be the same.

At 3:45am the next morning, I met the man again.

Washington

I met up with an old friend from Maryland for dinner last weekend — there was a supposedly good Chinese place in south Bellevue called “Top Gun.” This was “real chinese,” not shady fast food chinese.

When we walked in (after an impossible parking lot mess), I only saw chinese people, which is a good thing. When we tried to order, we realized that the waiter didn’t speak any english whatsoever, which is a bad thing.

The menus had english and chinese, so most of what we wanted we could point to, except for the thing I was most looking forward to — geoduck. (Geoduck is a giant clam that lives in some disgusting habitat, featured on Dirty Jobs) So, attempting to order geoduck, we ended up with a plate of crabs, which we sent back. (They later came back and just said “No,” which we assumed to mean that they had no geoduck.. or something) We also ordered bok choy, and ended up with spinach. And we ordered some tofu thing and ended up with.. well, a tofu thing. There was also some noodle dish which was awesome, I don’t know what it was.

Anyway, good times.

Washington

Magic and I spent some time at the Marymoor Park in Redmond, WA.

Marymoor contains one of the largest free-roaming off-leash dog areas in western Washington. Of course, Magic and I avoid this sort of thing, as the pit bull is always the first one to be blamed in any sort of incident, so we just meandered around the on-leash areas of the park. I felt bad for him, as there were a ton of off-leash dogs wandering around in this huge area, but it just wasn’t worth an incident.

We explored the rest of the park pretty exhaustively — it wasn’t the greatest park besides the dog area, though it did have a nice community garden and a dog washing station. They also had a few areas with downed trees as habitats, with a few plaques on why they were so important for wildlife. I will never think of downed trees in the same way again..

Washington

I’ve been in the Seattle area for a couple of weeks.  I’m continually reminded that I did my trip completely backwards, starting in the colder areas and moving to the warmer areas as the weather improved.  I other words, Seattle is still pretty gloomy.

But, I’ve had a great time here so far, mostly checking about various things in the city, and getting a lot of work done in a place where nobody has much of a reason to bother me.

So far I’ve been to

- Bus Stop (great bar)

- Bleu (great date restaurant)

- Tap House Grill (terrible multitap)

- Rock Bottom Brewery (a good example of a chain brewery)

- Long Provincial Vietnamese (great food, wacky service, though it’s brand new)

- a Circus Contraption show at Theo Chocolate.  (highly recommended.  a circus gone wrong happening as the world is ending outside.  great.)

- Tully’s Coffee in Bellevue (I know coffee is supposed to be better in Seattle, but I dunno)

- Red Hook Brewery in ..? Somewhere north.

Busy couple of weeks.  I also got to hang out with my old friend Meishan from LA (who I hadn’t seen in 9 years!) and Mike (from MD, who I hadn’t seen in at least 5 years). If nothing else, Airstreaming definitely has renewed a lot of good friendships. I leave Sunday for the bay area (14 hour attack run!)..

Oregon, Washington