Over the last couple of years, I've come to realize the importance of making life a shared experience and not to spend so much time in tiny boxes alone. And so Washington and Oregon passed me by in a whirlwind of visiting family and friends.
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| Puget Sound at sunset with my big brother Don and nephew (to be) Stockton at their "exclusive" cove in Normandy Park. |
Seattle was a blur of catching up with my big brother, making a pilgrimage to the REI flagship store with Gonzalo, checking out the Space Needle, taking a token walk through Pikes Place Market, hiking up Tiger Mountain, gabbing over dinner with an old friend from DC who had moved out to Seattle, paring down my gear one last time, and getting one last night of dancing in with another friend from DC who just happened to be visiting at the time.
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| View of the Space Needle from the back of the EMP Museum. |
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My sister-in-law (to be) Jill, Vance (not pictured here), and I took advantage of the perfect spring weather to hike up Tiger Mountain.
Too soon it was time to leave Seattle and head south through Portland, with detours to catch up with two of my favorite cousins along the way. By dinnertime Gonzalo and I invaded Corvallis to terrorize yet another former DC escapee. We collected a few more cat and dog hairs and headed out early the next day to make the gorgeous drive out towards the Oregon coast and down the iconic Pacific Coast highway 101. Imprinted in my brain is the magical misty beauty of this drive.
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| Oregon sand dunes. |
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| We couldn't resist following the big ass arrow to the ocean view. |
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| No false advertising here. Thar eet iz. |
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| Magical. Misty. Beauty. |
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| Obligatory "my bike was there" shot. |
Gonzalo and I are currently holed up in a Super 8 Motel in Crescent City, California for the next two nights, where gas costs $4.25 a gallon. This is only important because we decided to wait until we got to California thinking it might be cheaper than Oregon because of the tax Oregon adds to their gas prices to finance the full service gas attendants. Whoops. That $3.69 gas is looking pretty great right now. But life has a funny way of balancing itself out... we probably saved just as much when I convinced the receptionist at the Super 8 Motel to give us their lowest online advertised price, which was $15 less than any other place in town.
Tomorrow I'll be doing a second test run with my newly pared down and reorganized gear, then we'll be off to do a little dirt road riding amongst the Redwoods.
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