Fresh Betty Spaghetti

In many parts of the world, it's not uncommon for an eatery to specialize in one or two dishes, making them over and over again every day until they achieve a level of perfection that's hard to imagine in a country that demands numerous and varied options everywhere they go (if you don't believe me, check out reviews at Urbanspoon or Yelp! where restaurants actually get rated poorly for not having vegan or gluten free options, or even for not having Wi-Fi).  So if you're going to specialize in America and expect to succeed, you'd better be damn good at what you do, right?

Seattle 2013 - Day 3

Our last day in Seattle was Groundhog Day.  The movie, I mean.  Once again, I was the first out of bed.  Once again, everyone else was stirring by the time I emerged from the bathroom.  And once again, they wanted me to go across the street to Starbucks for a carbon copy of their orders from the previous two days.  Little Sister tagged along this time though, lucky thing since Starbucks was out of drink carriers.  The agenda for the day was to pack quickly, head over to the Pike Place Market, return to the hotel to check out (the only thing about leaving that I was really looking forward to), and hit Uwajimaya in the International District on our way out of town.

Seattle 2013 - Day 2 (P.M.)

I arrived back at the hotel, planning to lie down for a little while and digest.  The International District is closer to it than the Space Needle, so I figured I had at least fifteen or twenty minutes to relax before the ladies arrived.  As I stepped off the elevator I could see right into our room, where the cleaning woman was doing her thing.  Lovely.  I sat down in the hall and flipped through a copy of The Stranger I had picked up at one of the street corner dispensers on my walk.  The minutes stretched on, and before I knew it the elevator spat my traveling companions into the hallway.  Together, we all went downstairs to hang out in the lobby until the room was ready, showing each other the other pictures (at one point earlier in the day, Little Sister had sent a picture of the Seattle skyline as seen from the Needle to show me what I was missing; I sent her back one of a Bruce Lee mural) we had taken throughout the morning.

Bruce wins...

Seattle 2013 - Day 2 (A.M.)

I don't know exactly what time I woke up.  All I know is that everyone else was still asleep so, as the lone male in our merry band of traveling Idahoans, I jumped at the opportunity to be first to the shower.  Like everything else about the hotel, the shower worked ass-backwards, meaning that you had to turn the faucet the opposite of the labeled directions in order to achieve the desired effect.  The sink was even more interesting, in as much that it didn't matter what you did with the faucet, the water was just going to be whatever temperature it felt like at the moment.  If you just let it run, it would go from cold to scalding and back again at random.  And don't even get me started on the toilet that required three flushes to dispose of a single used tissue.  By the time I emerged, scrubbed fresh and ready to take on the day, my companions were stirring.  To my chagrin, my state of readiness got me nominated to go fetch coffee and breakfast for the others.  At Starbucks.  Even if I liked Starbucks, which I don't particularly (gingerbread lattes aside), I just cannot see the sense of going to a different city and wasting time and money at a place I can visit any day of the week at home.  Still, I fancy myself as something of a gentleman from time to time, so off I went to fetch the various  pastries and beverages the ladies requested.

While they drank and munched and bathed, I bemoaned the fact that they had already gone through the complimentary coffee in the room by the time I returned, and the fact that the complimentary Wi-Fi was only marginally better than dial-up (does that even exist anymore?).  My plan had been to do sporadic posts during the trip when I had some time to kill, but with it taking twenty minutes or so to upload a single picture, I scrapped that idea pretty quickly.  Interestingly enough, the Sprint network is screaming fast in Seattle, so I used my phone for pretty much everything while I was there.

I had hoped that once everyone else was fully awake and put together, I could talk them into hitting the International District with me so I could take care of this dim sum craving that's been tormenting me since my last trip to Portland two years ago.  Unfortunately they also had things they wanted to do that I wanted no part of, and with only a day and a half to go before we'd be back on the road, we decided to split up.  The womenfolk began the long trek to the Space Needle, and yours truly headed to Chinatown.

Not the happiest place on Earth, but pretty close...

Treats and Tragedies on the Road: Seattle 2013 - Day 1

The alarm went off at 4:00 A.M.  I know this must be true, so I can only assume that some kind of horrible little imp scurried in and hit the snooze button twice, because I awoke at 4:18.  Since our scheduled departure time was 4:45 I immediately raced to the shower, thankful that as a male all I had to do was lather up, rinse off, and throw on some clothes and a baseball cap.  Once that was done, I started throwing anything which struck me as being necessary for the three days to follow into a backpack and a gym bag, trying to remember why I had thought it would be a good idea to pack in the morning rather than before the four hours worth of sleep I had managed to get.

All told, we were only about 20 minutes late leaving town.  Our merry band of travelers consisted of my roommate, my roommate's sister, my roommate's tween daughter, and of course yours truly behind the wheel.  After quick stops at Starbucks and Dutch Bros. (because I don't like Starbucks, and yes I'm aware of the irony), we finally hit the freeway.  To be honest, that's all I remember until we stopped at Baker Truck Corral to use their disgusting bathrooms (the men's smells overwhelmingly of urine, and apparently the ladies'  room reeks of marijuana) and buy some of their repulsive coffee.  After that it was all junk food, rest stops and bad jokes until we reached Snoqualmie Falls.

This is a waterfall.  Yes, I will be talking about food soon.