We've been everywhere

We survived the Western Megatrip with no fights, no breakdowns (emotional or car-wise), no bad weather and no illnesses. We saw so much, I can't even remember it all. I will say this, cheesy or not, America is really beautiful. I really enjoyed watching the landscape change and I found that despite seeing more of this country I am still completely enamored with the Pacific Northwest. Besides seeing the country we also got to see family and friends, which was an added bonus. It was a long trip and there were times when we were so exhausted from driving we thought we'd never get to the hotel. We also ate some crappy food and some delicious food and sometimes we ate fast food. The complete photo set is on Flickr but here are a few :

Lincoln Highway in outside of Laramie,Wyoming

Salt Lake City Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah

Oregon Scenic Highway, somewhere in Oregon

Astoria, Oregon

Mt. Rushmore in Keystone, South Dakota

Crazy Horse Monument outside Custer, South Dakota

Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota

Places we stopped:

• Springfield, Missouri (had lunch at some brewery-type place downtown)
• Lincoln, Nebraska (spent the night & wandered around near the university)
• Cheyenne, Wyoming (stopped for lunch)
• Salt Lake City, Utah (saw family, Temple Square, beautiful mountains, had dinner at Silver Fork Lodge & breakfast at Finn's)
• Twin Falls, Idaho (saw Snake River Canyon & Shoshone Falls)
• Boise, Idaho (had delicious lunch at Salt Tears)
• Portland, Oregon (spent the night & went to The Meadow, FlavourSpot, Grilled Cheese Grill, a comic shop on Mississippi & Close Knit)
• Seaside, Oregon (saw the end of the Lewis & Clark trail)
• Astoria, Oregon (saw the house from Goonies!, the Oregon Film Museum & Astoria Column)
• Seattle, Washington (saw our Seattle friends, including two sweet babies!! Ate at Oddfellows, Spud's & Ivar's & got cupcake from Cupcake Royale)
• Roslyn, Washington (the "Northern Exposure" town, Doug insisted)
• Missoula, Montana (spent the night & had dinner at Biga Pizza)
• Crow Agency, Montana (saw the Little Big Horn National Battlefield & Monument) 
• Spearfish, South Dakota (spent the night)
• Keystone, South Dakota (saw Mt. Rushmore & the Crazy Horse Monument)
• Deadwood, South Dakota (saw the town, which is less like the HBO series & more like Gatlinburg with gambling. Also saw the graves of Wild Bill Hickok & Calamity Jane)
• Sioux Falls, South Dakota (stopped for lunch at Culver's where I swear I saw someone from Teen Mom)
• Mitchell, South Dakota (visited the Corn Palace)
• Sioux City, Iowa (saw lots of Missouri River flooding)
• Lawrence, Kansas (visited family, saw another cute baby, had some super-delicious ice cream at Sylas & Maddy's, shopped at Astrokitty Comics, the Yarn Barn & Au Marche)

Phew.

We did miss our cats a lot and the hotel sleeping/road food eating did get a little tiring but I am so glad we did it. You just can't see all of America (the good and the bad) from an airplane window.

Seattle Part II - Shopping, eating, walking

Saturday morning we woke up early and had breakfast at the 5 Spot in Upper Queen Anne. After breakfast we walked around for a bit, stopping at a few shops. When we left Queen Anne we drove to Archie McPhee's and got a contact high from the distinct plastic smell. At eleven Urban Craft Uprising opened so we headed back to Queen Anne for that. The Seattle Center was packed with people and crafters, lots of people I 'know' from Etsy and blogs. Doug got a very cool tshirt from a local artist and I bought a pair of simple silver earrings. 

That afternoon we picked up our friends and we all drove down to West Seattle. I drug my non-knitting friend to Little Knits and then bought two skeins of yarn (such restraint!) and Doug found a comic shop next door. We also had pie to Shoofly Pie down the street before heading over to Delancey for dinner.

We got there right before they opened and there was already a line. The pizza was very, very good and we were so glad to have time to enjoy dinner with our friends. I got a pepperoni and Doug got that night's special which was bacon and onions and something else. After dinner we took our friends back home, went back to our hotel and called it a night. 

On Sunday we had donuts and coffee at Top Pot before going downtown to Pike Place Market to walk around. The produce looked so good, I just don't like the fishy smell from the seafood stands.

We caught the ferry to Bainbridge Island and had lunch at a Thai place by the water. We walked around too and visit Churchmouse Yarn and Tea, where I purchased one skein of Blue Moon Socks that Rock and some tiny buttons.

By the time we made it back across we were so tired. We did manage to stop by Macrina Bakery for a pick-me-up before driving down to Tacoma to have coffee with one of Doug's friends who lives there. Monday morning we got up early and packed, had breakfast in West Seattle and stopped by Alki Beach again before heading to the airport. 

The security line was clogged up so we made it to our gate just in time for boarding. The flight back was kind of bumpy but shorter than the ride there. As always I really enjoyed my time in Seattle, although I think Doug wants to drive there next year...

Seattle Part I - The Olympic Peninsula

We survived our flights to Seattle with the help of expensive but terrible plane wine, laptop movie watching and some prescription pharmaceuticals. Thursday when we got in neither one of us felt great (it was the wine). We got our rental car and drove to West Seattle for a much-needed lunch of fish and chips at Salty's on Alki Beach. After that we checked into our hotel and later meet up for an early dinner with our Seattle friends. I had a roaring headache the rest of the night so we were in bed early. 

Friday morning I woke up at four in the morning because my body thought it was six. I got ready and patiently waited for Doug to wake up. Once he did we headed to Volunteer Park Cafe for a yummy breakfast and then spent the rest of the driving up the Olympic Peninsula. 

It is an outrageously beautiful drive, mountains, trees, lakes.

Eventually we made it to the Hoh Rain Forest, which was spectacularly quiet and serene. 

 

While we were there we saw *two* Bald Eagles in the wild, craziness! We also saw these elk on the side of the road. 

 

We had wanted to drive to Ruby Beach but by the time we got ready to head that way it was close to sunset and we still had close to twenty miles to drive. Instead, we headed back the way we came and stopped at Rialto Beach to watch the sun set. 

After all that we packed up and headed back to Seattle, stopping in Port Angeles for coffee and a bathroom break. It was so late when we got off the ferry we ate Ivar's for dinner. Ivar's is a Seattle fish and chips chain but it was really good after such a long day. 

The rest to come, Urban Craft Uprising, pie and shopping in West Seattle, dinner at Delancey, Kerry Park, Pike Place Market, Bainbridge Island and Tacoma.

That time of year again

It's time to catch a plane and head west. I'm leaving for Seattle on Thursday and this time Doug is coming with me. This trip makes the third December I've gone, Doug hasn't been back in sixteen years. Half of me is super excited to go and the other half of me is filled with overwhelming anxiety about flying. I could care less about the potential for scanning/groping by the TSA, I just don't want the plane to crash. Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that my dear, sweet husband is a terrible flier too. Right now our plan is to either a) take Xanax or b) take a quarter Ambien each.  We're leaning towards the Xanax considering once we make it to Seattle we have to pick up our rental car and drive into the city. Ambien has a way of disorienting you - even in small doses. This will be the first direct flight I've taken to Seattle, total flying time is around 4 hours (OMGOMGOMG) and 51 minutes. Deep breaths. I'm downloading some movies to my laptop and bringing plenty of knitting to keep us/me occupied and less concerned about crashing into the mountains.

 

 

Provided we safely land in the Emerald City, our loose plans include spending time with our friends who live in Edmonds, dining at Delancey, visiting the CakeSpy shop, hiking in the Hoh Rainforest, seeing Ruby Beach, taking the ferry to Bainbridge Island, shopping at Urban Craft Uprising and having a cupcake (or three) at Cupcake Royale.

Fingers crossed for an uneventful flight.

Jammers

I love baking cookbooks, I haven't counted how many I have but it's most of my cookbook library. I heard about the Grand Central Baking Book via a few other blogs I frequent. Somehow in my trips to Portland and Seattle I managed to not visit any GCB location so I really had no clue about them. But I ordered the cookbook and it came last Thursday and I started pawing through it immediately making my weekend baking plans. One of the first recipes I found was the Jammers recipe. Jammers are essentially biscuits filled with jam and then baked. Similar to the idea behind thumbprints (like yesterday's). They reminded me of a muffin I had at Macrina Bakery in Seattle. I toyed with the recipe a little, subbing some whole wheat flour for some of the white flour and added about 1/4 cup of ground flax seed. They were delicious, I used Bonne Maman raspberry preserves for the jam.I can't wait to make more things from the GCB cookbook, there are so many recipes packed into the book. The sandwich cookies look especially tempting and I bet they travel well too.

Up!

In honor of an Oscar gathering some friends had last night, I made the 7-Up "Up" Cake from Cakespy/Serious Eats. I'm enamored with Jessie Oleson's delicious illustrations and her love of all things baked and her recommendations of Seattle sweet spots has been invaluable to me when I've visited. She did a series of Oscar-themed desserts for Serious Eats and they were all very fun. The 7-Up cake was an artery hardener for sure, 5 sticks of butter, 3 cups of sugar (not including the frosting) and 5 eggs! Also, interestingly enough the directions called for creaming the butter and sugar together for 20, yes 20, minutes. I've never been so happy to own a stand mixer. There was also 3/4 of a cup of 7-Up in the cake, but the cake didn't taste much like 7-Up, one person said it tasted like cotton candy. I used a tad too much blue food coloring for the batter so the cake was more a BRIGHT blue than a soft sky blue. For the balloons I used little Dum-Dum suckers and I left off the coconut (I never know what the crowd consensus is on coconut). It turned out cute and waaay moist.

Viva! SeaTac

I'm back from Seattle, I got back Monday at an ungodly hour after a tense and bumpy plane ride home. It was a great trip, I had so much fun driving up and down the Olympic Peninsula, eating an assortment of baked goods (pie, cupcakes, croissants, cupcakes), spending time with my Seattle friends who drove me all over the place because they're awesome like that. It was really cold but I came prepared with handknits. The mittens I had been working on were a gift for one of my Seattle friends and I finished them in time but forgot to take a picture, she liked them a lot though.

There were visits to several yarn stores, see my haul below. I may have finally hit the point of having more yarn than I can actually use in the foreseeable future, but as any knitter will tell you it's a nice problem to have. In addition to the yarn I bought a little fabric too and I happened to be in Seattle the night Amy Karol of Angry Chicken fame was having a book signing at the Quilting Loft. I made it to the store and got my book signed, The Black Apple and NotMartha were both there but I was too shy to say anything.I have a ton of pictures, all on my Flickr account (link at the bottom of the blog), but these are the highlights, the good ones.

Seattle Skyline, as seen from Kerry ParkFort Worden in Port Townsend, Washington

Hurricane Ridge, Olympic National Park in Port AngelesSunset at Alki Beach in West Seattle, just look at those mountains!

Snoqualmie Falls (as seen in Twin Peaks)

Snoqualmie Pass, snow! It was sooo pretty

Leavenworth, Washington, which is a faux-Bavarian villageSpace Needle

Trophy Cupcakes in Wallingford, so.many.cupcakes. Plus there's a yarn store down the way.

Handmade vanilla bean marshmallows from Curio Confections in the University District, such a cute little place. I had a nougart bar there and man it was good.

Can't wait to go back, although it'll probably be a little longer than six months this time.