The Johnson's Repatriate: {the Northwest II}

27 September 2012

{the Northwest II}

After a great week with the S's ...

We headed south in our wretched rental car across the boarder along the scenic coastal highway to Seattle. (When we got to Enterprise we had our "choice" of 11 generic grey Impalas!) But regardless of the gutless vehicle, we had a great little road trip ... stopping for local cherries, and at scenic spots along the way.

When we got to Seatown, we stayed right downtown in the heart of the caffeinated hipster city. We took advantage of our great location and walked to the Klondike Gold Rush Museum, Wing Luke Museum (a fabulous tribute to Asian American culture and its troubled history in that corner of North America), took the monorail out to Seattle Center where we chilled out with skinny-jean clad locals, drank Starbucks (what else?) and caught the outdoor performance of several live bands preforming @ the EMP while gazing up at the famous Space Needle which to me seems both and retro and futuristic at the same time. Whilst in Seattle, Mr Johnson & I celebrated our fifteenth wedding anniversary!

{fresh produce}

{fish that fly}

We enjoyed jaunts to the Pike's Place Market where we watched the fish fly, haggled with the vendors, posed in front of the first ever Starbucks, and dined alfresco on shellfish ... looking out across on Puget Sound.
On our last morning, Mr Johnson and the girlies toured Boeing, while I had a solitary brunch back @ Pike's Place, and chatted with both of my sisters on Skype.

my Seattle home in the late 70s

Before heading back to Vancouver, we navigated around Seattle, searching for the rental I spent a year of my life in in the late 1970s. We found it, and I posed on the steps of a house I don't remember living in when I was two.

On our return to Vancouver, we stopped again at the quaint On our way back toward the Canadian border, we stopped again at a cove we had happened upon on our way down. On our second visit we remembered to grab some coins from the car, which we put on the track that ran right along the beach front at the base of the trail. (Placing coins on RR tracks was a childhood trick that I knew, but that Mr Johnson and the girlies had never done.)

After reading up in our Lonely Planet, we learned that the cove is a infamous, locally, as a nude swimming area ... which quite frankly explained a lot. We had great fun on both stops there, and we remained mostly clothed. (Although if you looked closely you would note Mr Johnson adopted a 'when in Rome' philosophy ... Most of the summer term college kids @ the cove just went swimming in their undies ... and he followed "suit"less)