I’ve spent the week working in the bay area again, and rather than heading back to Saratoga, I decided to check out Coyote Valley RV Resort in Morgan Hill. Morgan Hill is far, far away, but the park is great. Well maintained, lots of high-end rigs, a little dog park, etc. Morgan Hill seems to be in the middle of a forced gentrification, so there is a lot of crap development surrounded by cows etc.
Heading south in 12 hours..
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)
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:
And some photos..
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.
Dixie’s BBQ
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.
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..
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!)..
For those Deadliest Catch fans out there, I’m happy to say that I can see the Helly Hansen corporate offices from my current RV park. (Helly Hansen is the brand of equipment they use on the Northwestern — yes, the same Hansen as Captain Sig.)
The other thing I can see from my RV park is a lot of white box RVs jam packed into a small space. Trees are important in the p-n-dub, people!!
After averting engine and backup disaster on I-84, I spent the next 18 hours or so in Portland. This would be first old-friend-reunion of the trip, as I spent most of my time with my old friend Chris (who owns a design company called Silktricky), who grew up near me back in PA. We hadn’t seen each other in about 14 years, but had a great time hanging out in Portland.
I have no sense of geography, so I can’t really say where we were, but check my Yelp reviews if you care (http://beer.yelp.com)
This was my first true urban camping experience. Meaning, I parked the rig on the street and slept in it. This was also my first experience with ground clearance on the airstream, as some of the hills in Portland were way too steep, and I was dragging the rear bumper quite a bit. A horrible noise, but no harm done.
Portland seemed pretty awesome; I want to spend more time there. I have realized that I did this trip absolutely backwards so far — I should’ve started in LA in Feb/Mar, then Bay Area Apr/May, then PNW June/July. Oh well, next year.
A disgracefully small number of Portland pictures.
The first major “incident” of the trip happened as I headed for Portland, several miles west of Hood River.
There was a good amount of traffic heading west, including a number of disgustingly smoky haulers that were pumping black smoke into the clean Oregon air. Pass them going up the hill, then they pass you going down the hill at some ridiculous speed. Then smell them again. Etc.
I finally got fed up with this when a suburban passed me, towing a trailer full of logs that were not secured at all. I pictured myself in one of those bad insurance company commercials. It was time to pick up the pace and leave these idiots behind.
Note to self: Even though the F-250 is rated to be able to tow almost 3 tons more than I am normally hauling, apparently there are still limits. Especially when you have poorly-installed aftermarket parts.
Passing the log truck at about 75mph going up a hill, I heard a loud bang, and the truck started making a terrible noise. GPS shows an exit coming up, which I limped toward in disgrace. At the bottom of the ramp, I could either go left which seemed to immediately go up hill, or right, over a railroad track and then to a loop where I could turn around easily. Right it is. Whoops.
The road, of course, had a gate on it, which I didn’t realize until I had driven about 500 feet around a bend. The road was barely wide enough for two cars to pass. There were no shoulders. I am just under 50 feet long. Assuming I get the rig fixed, I am going to have to back up a hill, around a bend, and over a railroad track. Did I mention that I suck at backing up?
The loud bang was my intercooler line (from the turbo to the hot side of the intercooler) being blown off. I thought there were supposed to be systems to prevent an overboost condition, but those systems may also consist of the driver paying attention to the redline of the turbo gauge, which I thought was just there to add color to the dashboard. It’s also possible that the line (well, pipe, really) was never attached properly anyway. The angle at which it seemed to have been connected did not appear to be correct at all. Who knows.
After disconnecting the entire assembly (an aftermarket unit from Banks), I managed to remount it and everything sounded ok again. Now the backing challenge. Did I mention I suck at backing up?
It took about 20 minutes to back up, including a several minute wait for a train that decided to go by just as I was about to cross the tracks. Good times.
An uneventful drive to Portland otherwise..
