Vacation, Part 1

So, we went to Seattle and Portland for a visit Aug. 9-16. We had a great time. I had visions of writing on the blog every night from our hotel room, but we know how that turned out, don't we? Some highlights:

--The Pacific Northwest is having a hot summer. A VERY HOT summer. Well, what's hot out there felt delightful to me because there was no humidity. (Parenthetically: Everyone in D.C. keeps saying what an unusually cool summer this is. If this is cool, I dread what a normal summer is like because I have had a lovely time of it and I can't stand the thought of being soaked in sweat for four months out of the year as opposed to, oh, less than a week this year.) We went to a Renaissance Fair in Washington state, which was not at all the cheesy production I expected it to be, then spent Monday at Sammamish Lake, swimming, building sandcastles, reading, lying in the sun, rinse, wash and repeat. That day broke the heat record for Seattle -- it was 96 degrees -- but I could have stayed there all day and camped overnight, too. It was hot when we were in Anne and David's house, but fans took care of that.

--I really miss Seattle. We spent late Tuesday morning walking around Pike Place Market and buying lunch -- I got fresh Dungeness crab with cocktail sauce and lightly fried oysters with French fries and a coffee-flavored pastry form a great French bakery, and I was in my happy place. Really, I didn't need to eat anything more the entire vacation, even though I did. The views of the water, the greenery, the people walking around, made me realize that I'd love to retire to Seattle -- or at least spend large chunks of rain-free time there. Maybe spend summers there and the rest of the year in D.C.?

--Drew felt weirded out in Seattle because he left so abruptly and didn't have time to process it; I got weirded out being a tourist in Portland, scene of so much of my unhappiness in my 30s and early and nmid-40s, and yet also a place I really did love. We went back to Rachel's preschool, and all the teachers remembered her (Teacher Erin made sure to say that she misses Rachel because she no longer gets her mom's chocolate chip CAKE) and hugged her, and said they miss her. They've gotten new furniture but it was still the slightly shabby, well-worn place that gave Rachel such a great start in life. We ran into one of her teachers at the Wednesday farmer's market; I ran into a former colleague of mine from the Oregonian who is now a book author and private investigator, and we got some fabulous cookies to bring home (and I tried some vegan chocolates, which were FABULOUS.) When I think of our trip to Oregon, I will think of the food.