The adventure had begun. Two of my favorite hookerfaces (aka people) and I had one week to show Washington what was up. Lyn now lives in this quaint little coastal town, la Conner, so that was our first stop for some brews and grub in our slightly delirious state. The town has a rough population of 800, a lot of whom are older and male. To say that I felt a little out of place is obvious. So far this trip, I have hung in two towns of roughly that population and everyone definitely notices that you are new ... And female.
After roaming the strip that is all of about a mile long, we wearily resign back to lyn's camper. To say that Jess and I were in rare form at this point could possibly have been an understatement. We have some photo documentation of that evening and quite frankly they will never see the light of day (eh hem lyn ... listen up!) The delirium and excitement of our adventure had taken over and we were definitely feeding off of each other.
The real day 1 (6.25.13): Bellingham
Ok let's just start by saying that Bellingham luckily has more than 800 folks, so I didn't totally stand out. However the large and in charge new dslr camera that I was sporting definitely did. And I obviously had no idea how to use it. I had just bought it that morning. Because this genius over here decided to procrastinate and not start packing until 11 at night, which cAused the simple camera I already l owned to stay plugged in charging and never make it into my bags. Doh!
Bellingham is awesome. Period. That's the end of this blog entry.
Okay. Fine. I'll explain to you just as to why Bellingham may be one of my top new desired places on the planet. It's quaint without being small. It holds the beauty and charm of Asheville, though while being totally more genuine. It's overcast and 50 degrees in June; everyone is wearing jeans and sweaters, yet they are all smiley, as if this is the best day they have ever come across. Except for that one server. But we're just going to leave him out of this blog.
We began the day with breakfast. I love eating breakfast and especially out. I could contently eat saltines and bread the rest of the day as long as I get a killer breakfast. And can I just say thank all of the higher powers for urban spoon. It always points me in the right direction for amazing breakfast places. In Bellingham, it was "The Old Town Cafe". Small and packed even at 10 on a Tuesday, but after eating there, you get it. Something I have noticed while out west is that the majority of their restaurants are smart. You ask for a glass of water and the server points to a communal table with a cooler and stacks of glasses. It's help yourself. Genius! Heidi and Sarah are you paying attention here??! š Also community family-style tables. Love it! I mean yes not everyone is up for sitting beside a random soul to eat their breakfast, but for me it's awesome for travelers as well as for volume/capacity.
Anyhow, after stuffing ourselves to an absurd capacity, we set off to explore the downtown. We did some thrifting and some wandering ... Actually lots of wandering. And decided it was time to check out what sort of local brews this awesome and quaint city had to offer. First stop was Boundary Bay Brewing. Their brews were quite good and they had a thorough collection of your standards (ipa, stout, pils, etc) as well as quite a few unique styles, such as a CDA (cascadia dark ale .. It was tasty). However, it was there that we encountered the service that we are not going to talk about in this blog. After finishing our beers, we were off to the next spot: chuckanut. Just a few blocks away and still in the downtown space. Now here the folks were all good, the location was clutch, and the facility itself was pretty rad. However, they did not have any variety in their beers. They focused on pilsners, blondes, kolsch, and hefeweisen. None of which I drink or enjoy, so this was horribly disappointing. Finally we decided to hit up the last brewery that we knew of: kulshan. I looked it up and according to the map it was a mile up the road. As we began to walk though we realized that mile was not going to keep us downtown. You were walking through downtown, then suddenly were no longer really in downtown, and then suddenly in a new awesome little neighborhood. Kulshan was by far the most awesome.
Kulshan reminded me a lot of wicked weed in Asheville. Plus they were celebrating Christmas in June so had all winter brews on tap in addition to their regulars. And everyone was rocking Santa hats and there were some guys playing Christmas music out front. It was a totally awesome and rad theme. They had a good selection of beers, which is always nice. Plus when you ordered a sampler, you could do the 6 of your choice which isn't a always the case. We met Nate's doppelgƤnger there too which was amusing. We impressed him with our desire of hoppy high-octane beers. We ordered a sampler and threw him, going straight for all the ipA, imperial, hop-heavy beers they had. I think he was a smidge speechless. The coolest part though: the sampler mat was a wooden board shaped into the state of Alaska. Pictures will follow. Don't worry.
We concluded our day with Mexican and margaritas at some random little divey style place on the way back. And this place was banging! They even had ceviche. And GOOD ceviche. Typically you can't find very good ceviche here in the states, but this place had it down. I was super impressed.
Seattle was day 2 and it's going to have to wait. This Lil nomad soul needs to roll into her bed and sleep til she can sleep no more. Did I mention that I slept for almost 13 hours last night??! It was insane. I don't think I've slept much thus far on this vacay.
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