Seattle Wrap Up

This morning I hit the road and head to Oregon. My last evening in Seattle was spent with Anne and Rod. Anne is the sister of one of my mom’s good friends from home. Anne and Rod are both in their sixties and live in West Seattle where they have a beautiful view of the water. And she showed pictures to me to prove that on a clear day you can see across to water to the booming mountains of the Olympic Mountains. Rod is still recovering from a lung transplant that he had in April. His illness has changed his life completely. Currently he is working on an ecology text book that he adds a little to each day. Their house is beautiful. I love the kitchen area, which is filled with a variety of items from all kinds of different ethnicities. It’s very eclectic and all pulled together so well.

We spent the evening chatting away and went to the Homestead restaurant for a great dinner. This is where settles first came to Seattle in 1851. If it weren’t for the help of the Native Americans the settles may not of survived. Here we ran into some of Anne and Rod’s friends who joined us for pie and tea back at the house after dinner.

Ok, I have to go backwards again. Before meeting Anne and Rod I spent the afternoon with my mom’s cousin Andy, his wife Hannah and their daughter Lily who is in 4th grade. A wonderful family. Andy quit his job at Microsoft as a programmer to be a stay-at-home father while Hannah continues to work as a Librarian at one of the most impressive libraries in the country. Hannah has a great amount of pride as a librarian and made some great points of how a library can be seen as the center of a community, or at least a great window to understand the community. When Andy graduate college he and a friend traveled across country on motorcycles, later on Andy and Hannah traveled around the country in a Volkswagen van. So we were able to relate on a lot of things regarding my trip. It was fantastic to meet more family again.

Between Andy’s family, Anne and Rod, and their friends I feel like they are what I expected of people in Seattle. Everyone I’ve ever met from Seattle in Michigan had a calm to them, intelligent, and seemed to enjoy exploring, stories, and meeting new people. I’m not sure how well that sums them up, but they all have a great aura to them and represent Seattle very well.

Seattle and Washington was kind of experienced through quantity rather than quality. I split my time staying at four different locations in Washington, three being in Seattle. I spent two nights in Seattle with Nicole who is 23 and moved here just two months ago, then two nights with Chris’s family who has been out here since the early 80s, and then a night with Anne and Rod who are in their 60s who’s kids are all moved out. So I was able to see three different generations of living between the different hosts, which is a great experience. But it’s a lot more difficult to move every couple days.

All in all I really like Seattle. Great people, great variety, close to the ocean, close to the mountains, and a weird climate but it’s a nice climate. Thank you Seattle!