Third day: Off To Seattle
Hooked up my bags (the right direction), checked out of the hotel and made my way out of Portland. I could definitely see living there if only they had hockey.
Final notes on Portland:
- People are VERY protective of their walkways and all traffic will stop for them till they’ve cleared it seems. One woman got VERY upset when I turned into one when she was 2 steps off the sidewalk and I was a good 13ft away.
- The traffic lights in the city are perfect, you’re always flowing rarely stopping for more than a few seconds and thats usually because you’ve rushed up to the next light.
- There are less motorcycles in town than I expected though everyone’s very aware of you, I’ll attribute that to the bikers.
- They actually let people drive on the light rail tracks because their trains are easy to see. I’ll attribute that to the fact that they’re FUCKING TRAINS.
Off to see Manny! The ride out to Seattle from Portland is very scenic and in the morning quite chilly. The earbuds have really paid off as they’re actually blocking out sound and I can hear my tunes which prevents me from going insane. I still need to master no look album changing on my iPod otherwise I’m stuck with silence till the next rest stop or gas station. I encountered stop and go traffic all throughout Tacoma but it was there I added and checked off something to my bucket list. ”See someone drive a Toyota Tacoma in Tocama”. I wish they had more points to stop and take pictures along the way, maybe I’ll have to go off the beaten path a bit and take some shots on my next leg of the trip.
Coming in from I5 you get a pretty rad view of Seattle as you roll over one last hill and all of the city is exposed to you. I pulled off the interstate and onto some industrial island and gave Manny a call to get her address and shot over to her place. After unloading my bags and meeting the (extremely nice) roommates I immediately popped a pill for my allergies so that I would be invincible to the biochemical weapon known as cat dander.
Right off the bat I ended up participating in the final steps of making goat cheese. Manny made the entire process seem surprisingly simple and almost tempting to try sometime. After all the layers of cheese and salt had been added she topped off the little planter pot looking cheese containers with special cheese fabric and we went out to venture around the city. 
We hit up a place off the water called Chupacabra where I intended on having a smaller dish of chicken enchilada but it ended up being massive. We finished our meal and having heard there would be a chance of rain the next day I was spooked into getting a rain jacket (yes I should have thought about that before I left). We hit up some Seattle Cycle shop and I found a disgusting yellow jacket that would work over my current one. Since we were in the hood Manny wanted to hit up a plant shop where she picked up some indoor and outdoor succulents to add to her quite rad patio garden that her and her boyfriend Zach had assembled.
Grasping for ideas of what to do and me being no help Manny made the call to hit up the boat locks where we might be able to watch some salmon trying to climb the fish ladder. When we got to the locks a fishing boat was waiting to be lowered out so they could head out to the Oregon coast to cast their nets. Some senior was there asking the youngest of the crew members tons of questions and I was impressed with his patience, no way could I answer some strangers questions about what I do on a nearly daily basis.
We kept walking further along the lock and watched as they were finally going to lower the boat. It was then tons of massive sprinklers turned on and as Manny and I were laughing at the Indian family getting hosed down by the sprayers we were insta-Karmaed in return which we accepted with laughter. The strangest/funniest part of the situation was, why the hell are they watering….the water? After finally getting to the fish ladder we didnt really spot anything jumping above water but from the viewing windows there were a hand full salmon chilling at each stage. On our way out we did get to see a few monster 30lb’ers move up the stages of the ladder with such little effort it was as if they were mocking the weaker smaller fish.
On the way back to Manny’s place we noticed that there was a Mariners game starting which we halfass attempted to go to but a 6 pack of beers and chatting over shitty tv shows turned that into a lost cause that neither of us cared that much about in the first place. Manny suggested hitting up a woodfire pizza restaurant within walking distance called Bar Del Corso which was newly converted from the shittiest dive bar in the area and you’d never know it. We got some rizzotto cheese balls for apps and a salami pizza both great and perfectly filling. We walked back home and after watching some more trashy TV I slept on the couch which was surprisingly comfortable.
A fantastic day with a great friend and the last great friend I’ll see till arriving back home Minneapolis.
