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In seven days we'd seen just about every variety of habitat and attraction one could hope to in a blind trek through uncharted lands, but suddenly our time in the north was up. There were just a few curiosities to see on the way to the airport. 
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My grandparents moved to Coeur de'Alene, Idaho when I was eight or nine, and though visits to their little northern town were treasured, the cost and distance made opportunities to do so rare. Two years previous, my dad's side and I dropped in as a surprise for my Grandma's 92nd birthday. Since then, Lizett and I married, but she had yet to meet Grandma Anita and Grandpa Dwayne, who send touching Christmas cards and correspondence and good wishes for every occasion.  By mid-morning we again left the city in search of the real world. We went by ferry to Bainbridge island, where a Shire worthy of Tolkien exists like a beautiful passage written on aged vellum, hidden quietly away until curious readers unfurl and fall in.  I mentioned this was the furthest north either of us had ever gone. The closest I'd been previously was a drive from Northridge up to Bend, Oregon, where the slow transition of endless California cow country to blankets of green trees was like entering a different world.  Abruptly evicted, we got up early to repack and relocate. AirBnB we hardly knew ye. I hiked from Capitol Hill to DTS to exhume the car, then loaded it in a red zone with extreme prejudice. But morale only improved from there. The La Quinta had on-site, gated parking for the same plasma I would have drained at the DTS lot, and you could have pissed on it from the Space Needle. Also free coffee and cookies which I took unfair advantage of. We unpacked and followed the Needle to new lands.  This isn't a guide for where to go or what to see in the Seattle area, though you'd likely have a good time retracing our route. It's more a journal of everything that happened on our first trip to the Northwest, and the sort of moments and observations that help the traveler who left become the traveler who returns. The journey included Seattle, Idaho, some long-missed friends and family, and the rural America in between. We had no plan, but expected coffee, books, art, music, good people and Frasier. We got all that, plus plenty of plot twists along the way. The Emerald City is a land of illusion.  |
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November 2025
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