There’s no question that the very best part of our visit to the Pacific Northwest was spending time with longtime friends from Newton and from our circus family. (You know who you are, and we are so grateful that you could take time out of your busy lives to spend some time with us!) We were drawn to that region by more than our desire to see old friends, however. We have always dreamed of visiting (and perhaps one day living in) the Pacific Northwest. It seemed to have some similarities to New England, and we knew the food and beverage scene would be great. In many ways, our instincts were correct. The Pacific Northwest is gorgeous, and we love the outdoor vibe. While both Portland and Seattle are amongst the struggling cities we write about in another post, there’s still much to love about each. The Portland food scene is pretty impressive, and you could spend your entire visit just eating from their 1,000 food trucks (which they prefer to call food carts). In fact, we just read that Food & Wine named Portland the Best Food Truck City in America! We sampled a wide variety of cuisines from just a couple of the food truck pods scattered around the city, each with its own vibe. At Hawthorn Asylum felt like we’d stepped into a Batman movie, while at Cartopia (the original pod) the vibe was more backyard party.
And in case you’re wondering about the title of this post…that was one cart we were sorry to miss — we hear they have the best egg sandwiches in the city!
We also spent a delightful Sunday tasting beer and gin. We had booked a hosted tasting tour, but they canceled at the last minute, so we created our own adventure! The tasting room at Aviation Gin was so fun. While the gin cocktails were delicious, the charcuterie/snack vending machine was the highlight of the day!
Gig Harbor — home base for our visit to the Seattle area — is a cute little town, with plenty of (hilly!) walking and cycling nearby. From there it was an easy ferry trip into downtown Seattle, where we visited Ferry Market (yes, they do throw fish and yes Michele was almost hit by one).
The views from the ferry were incredible, and we were fortunate to take our trip on the one sunny day of our entire stay. Speaking of views…we were driving to meet one of Michele’s clients and were startled to see Mt. Rainier off in the distance. We’ve seen some impressive sights at this point, but it’s not every day that you see a 14,000 foot active volcano on the horizon. We were sorry not to have time to visit (and it was too snowy to do so)… we’ll definitely plan to spend some time at closer range next time around!
Much as we loved our visit, we agreed that perhaps it felt a little TOO much like home. And everything they say about the weather is true (we’ve said enough about rain at this point…).
That being said, we plan to check out the region in fall 2024. We hear that it’s just stunning that time of year…and less likely to be soggy!