WE'RE HOME!
After a week of city-hopping, Trevor and I are back home to Chicago, and happy to be off the road. We had a fabulous time and got to see a lot of the Pacific Northwest. We started in Portland, OR, to visit our friends Brenda and Derek (who are actually going to be moving back to the Midwest [Fargo, ND] sometime during the next year, which means more visits!). They took us around to see a lot of Portland's great sites, including:
1. VOODOO DONUT! That's right, the best damn donut shop I've ever been to! They had a donut covered in Coco Puffs, which was delicious. Derek reported that they do occasionally stock a maple bar w/ a piece of bacon on it (not good for Trevor, and actually, not sure if it's good for me...).
2. The Rose Garden in Washington Park which was the best smelling park I've ever visited! They also took us for a drive through the hills in/throughout the park where little bungalows were nestled among the trees. It was amazing, if not a bit steep for my taste (thank god I wasn't driving).
3. Shopping! We went to a bunch of neighborhoods and got some terrific shopping--both window shopping and actual shopping--done. It was great. Each jag was followed by a stop of some sort to get a bite to eat and rest our tired shopping feet. Which brings me to the greatest attraction...
4. The COFFEE (and food, and beer...but, mostly the coffee.). There was an amazing coffee shop on nearly every corner, and each one we visited had amazing pastries and just delicious coffee. B. and D. introduced us to the Americano, which I'd never thought much about before, since Chicago's such a drip coffee-town, but that's more normal out West, and since espresso is their specialty, we tried some and fell in love. Just great. It was most definitely the best tasting vacation I've ever had.
5. POWELL'S CITY OF BOOKS! I saved the best for last. It was the best book store I've ever been to, and I barely got off of the first floor! I got books, books, and more books, and had to jam them all into my suitcase (because of course I overpacked for the trip) and my purse to get them all home. But it was worth it. Trevor only got two, so I really needed to get as many as I did to make up for him! Unfortunately we were interrupted in the rare books section by the idiot doggie day care man, so we didn't get to buy anything old and cool, but Trevor found the first edition of a book we've got at home (one that his grandpa gave him a couple of months ago)--Trevor's is a first edition, fourth printing, and it was so neat to see an edition there in the special room!

Brenda and Derek were so hospitable and we had so much fun with them, so it was hard to leave on Wednesday morning. But Trevor and I gave them some hugs and got into our rental car to head for the Quinault Rain Forest. It was a lovely, if not a bit rainy, drive up. The lodge where we stayed was great: right on the lake, far from everything, surrounded by trees, across the street from some great hiking trails, and it didn't have any televisions or phones in the room. It was really quite nice. After Trevor and I snagged some ponchos from the gift shop, we headed out into the forest to do some hiking. Because of the drizzly weather, we were pretty alone on the trails, which was nice. The scenery was like nothing I've ever seen: lush beyond green, moss growing on everything, waterfalls and small rapids in all of the streams...it was heavenly. After a great dinner at the lodge, a game of Scrabble and some rest, Trevor and I took another hike before we left for Seattle in the morning. The second one was great, too, because we got to see a Banana Slug (they're quite friendly, and photogenic!) and the world's biggest Spruce tree, which was fun! It was very large, indeed. But we left the forest and took off for Seattle, still unable to put down the top on the rental car because of the spotty weather.

We arrived in Seattle in the late afternoon on Thursday to check in at the Moore Hotel in Belltown. The two of us were exhausted, but were made more so because our room wasn't quite ready for check-in. So we waited a while, got irritated, but finally got into the room and out into the city, which is what we were most anxious about. We hit the Pike Place Market for some wandering, grabbed a beer, and headed up to the Fremont neighborhood for dinner. The dinner (Thai food) was great, and the neighborhood was perfect for wandering around, so we hit a couple of record stores (scored some really good stuff...) and then headed back to Belltown to catch a drink at Rendezvous, a bar we'd heard of through a friend of ours (Jeremy Evans, who just got married to my old roommate, Jenn this weekend, which was the perfect start to our vacation!). And it turned out the guy we'd met at the wedding, Keith, was actually working when we arrived, so we chatted with him and, later, his girlfriend Rachel (who turned out to be a book nerd like me, so she was a blast!), and we had a wonderful time. We got free drinks, fabulous conversation, and Portland's smoke-free so we were able to come back to the hotel and not smell like a giant ashtray! It was great. Friday morning we grabbed coffee at Monorail Espresso (per Rachel's recommendation, and she was sooo on the money!), Trevor passed out one of his new buttons to a Seattle biker, who seemed very impressed, and headed up to the new Seattle Public Library. It was GORgeous. Steel and glass everywhere, a Dewey Decimal System Sprial that we walked (haven't we seen this corner before?) and a great gift shop where I went a little kookoo for book paraphanalia. Trevor had to drag me out of there to see some more sights. We headed up to the Ballard neighborhood to see a book store that turned out to be closed due to renovations, which kind of stunk, but the area was a lot of fun for more wandering, so we hung around for a while. I tried a Seattle style hot-dog at a gourmet frank stand (they had veggie dogs for Trevor!) which included onions, mustard, and cheese. Quite tasty. We had a great dinner later that night at a fancy but comfortable restaurant where we had a great meal made with all organic ingredients. My friend Brian (an old Chicago Shakespeare buddy who's moved out to Seattle to tour w/ his singer/songwriter sister Rosie, but who's going to move back to the Midwest in the fall.) met us out for a few drinks, and it was great to see him. By the end of the night we were pooped, but not too pooped to wake up and grab some breakfast from the Crumpet Shop at the Market! They were delicious, as was the tea, then we took off back to Portland. And the weather was finally nice enough to put the top down on our convertible!

So we cruised back down to Oregon, finally found their inconspicuous airport, and made a quite spacious flight back to Chicago.

Whew! It was such a fun trip, and Trevor's got some great pictures. I hopefully got some good shots, too, so as soon as I develop we'll post some up here!

Well, it's off to bed before work in the morning! Until next time, True Believers!

BORK-POWER!