Seattle!
Seattle was a bit of a family stop for me. My aunt, uncle, and cousins have lived in Seattle since before I was born. When I was little we would try and visit as much as possible but over the years it's been tough getting from Miami all the way up to Seattle. Therefore, unfortunately, it had been about 15 years since I had seen one of my cousins, Michael. Thankfully one of the great things about family is once you're reunited it's like no time has passed at all! Michael welcomed us with open arms and was gracious enough to let us crash with him in his swanky downtown Seattle apartment. This place had a rooftop that was to die for and a killer view of the whole city! I mean you could see for miles in every direction! It was unfortunate that we were so exhausted because I know New York is the city that never sleeps but as we were standing on that rooftop, looking out for miles and miles it looked like Seattle could give New York a run for it's money. One thing that will always win over sleep however is food. So we let Michael and his girlfriend, Cari, take us out to a really cool Mexican place called Cactus. It was in Alki Beach which was a really cute little area right on the water! Plus I'm not a big Mexican fan but I LOVED the food!! We were hoping the food might give us a little bit of energy but instead it just put us in a food coma. So we headed back to Michael's and crashed for the night!
The next morning we said goodbye to Michael and headed for a quick brunch with an old friend of ours from college! Meggie was our sorority sister and long time friend so it was great to be able to catch up with her! We met her at this place called Portage Bay and I had these vegan banana pancakes that were to die for! This was clearly the spot to be for brunch and we had definitely gotten there at the exact right time because as we were enjoying our delicious meal people were lining up around the block! It's always fun catching up with old friends and even better when it's done over a spectacular brunch! Eventually we downed the last of our mimosas and relinquished our table for the next group of brunchers. Sadly we didn't manage to get a picture of the three of us so feel free to enjoy a couple oldies from college below haha. We gave our hugs and said our goodbyes and Haley and I set off to catch the car ferry that would take us across the bay to Poulsbo; the little town where my aunt and uncle lived. (Was it the ferry that Derek Sheppard took to work at Seattle Grace everyday? Not sure, but we pretended like it was and that was good enough for us!) Truthfully I was more excited about getting a chance to recreate this picture I had of myself on this ferry many many years ago. I thought it would be a cute idea to retake the picture and then frame them both side by side for my mom. Unfortunately the wind was blowing exceptionally hard and since the picture had originally been taken in the back of the boat the smell of the exhaust was killing me! Between the wind blowing my hair around, my eyes watering, and my choking on exhaust lets just say this picture didn't turn out quite like I had planned. I ran back down to the auto deck and sat out the remainder of the ride in Penny.
Once we arrived I drove Haley through the cute little downtown area of Poulsbo, which is known as being an old Viking Village. I know my Aunt Mikie and Uncle Al were eager to see us so I promised Haley we would come back and do some more exploring of the cute downtown area. As we drove up the long gravel road to their house it was exactly as I remembered it from my childhood. I saw the blackberry bushes along the fence that I used to pick in the summertime and a family of deer were scampering away as we approached. I was always jealous of the abundance of nature and wildlife they had right in their backyard! They even have this family of raccoons that my uncle has fed and taken care of for over three generations. I had talked Haley's ear off about the raccoons so she was pretty excited to see the little guys! Mikie and Al were happy to have us and it was really great to not only see them but to be back in Washington! We visited with them for a little while and they took us out to eat at a local brewery. That's another really cool thing about this area, for being such a small town there are a ton of cool new Microbreweries. After dinner Haley and I went exploring and came across the tiny town of Port Gamble. The town literally had two stop signs and a tiny water tower which we "climbed". Climbing a water tower has been on my bucket list since watching Sweet Home Alabama but I'm not entirely sure I can check it off but it was still fun! Next we stumbled upon a Microbrewery in downtown Poulsbo called Slippery Pig Brewery and we fell in love! We drank some local Rhubarb IPA and listened to some live music! It was a perfect night in this small town of Poulsbo!
The next morning we woke up to some amazing donuts (thanks Uncle Al) and the raccoon family eating on the back porch. Now I'm not a morning person, not even close, but I was up and out of bed so fast that morning to catch a glimpse of those cute little masked bandits having their early morning snack! Haley was still a little bitter that we didn't make it to Voodoo Donuts when we were in Portland but thankfully I think she softened a little with each donut she ate this morning (we both ate about three and took just as many to go!). Sadly our time in Washington was coming to an end but we did want to spend a little time downtown while all the shops were open. So as we were upstairs packing up our things Al did what any good uncle would do and cleaned out Penny for us! We were grateful because it honestly was beginning to look like an episode of hoarders in that car, yikes! Also we had NO idea that you could get a ticket in Washington if you got pulled over and didn't have a trash bag in your car, who knew?! #thethingsyoulearndrivingcrosscountry Mikie also had been in the kitchen putting together a little care package for us with snacks and fun things to entertain us on the drive. I definitely win in the aunt and uncle department! We said our goodbyes and took a few pictures, even though we were looking a little rough that morning, and headed downtown.
We only expected to spend maybe 20 or 30 minutes walking around the town since we had a long day of driving ahead of us however we ended up spending over an hour in this little antique shop. We were looking for some post cards to send to friends and family back home but what we found was so much better! If you've ever been in an antique store you know how crowded they can be, shelves upon shelves just jam packed with things. I found myself at a dead end towards the back of the shop and as I turned to walk back up front my little black Longchamp bumped a shelf knocking over an old shoe box, spilling its contents. I quickly bent down to try and clean up my mess before anyone noticed but what I found were dozens of old postcards! I couldn't help but start to read them and realized they dated back to the early 1900s. A few minutes later Haley came looking for me and found me sitting cross-legged on the floor with these post cards all around me. I filled her in on what I had found and for the next hour we sat there reading about this woman, Isabelle Breckenridge, and her cross country road trip that she took about a hundred years ago! We couldn't believe what we had just found, it seemed as though Isabelle had followed a very similar itinerary as us, or I guess really we were following her path. There were a ton of gaps in her story since we were only reading what she had written to her father, A. W. Breckenridge. We managed to learn that she had at least two sons, Billie was the youngest it seemed and we actually found a picture of him. We think her older son traveled with her for part of her journey but we're not sure what happened to him. We could have spent hours on that shop floor trying to piece together the life of this woman but we needed to get on with our own road trip. As much as we enjoyed reading Isabelle's post cards at a dollar a piece we weren't exactly inclined to spend a fortune on them. So we grabbed about 20 or so of the ones that were easiest to read and a few of the pictures, including the one of Billie standing on the steps of an old house, and checked out. I just can't help but wonder in a hundred years what will come of all the post cards I've sent to friends and family. Will they be in a landfill somewhere or will a couple of young crazy girls be sitting cross-legged in a dusty old antique store trying to piece together this epic cross country trip we're on?
