when it comes to hot springs, sometimes it's best to read the warnings afterwards

Seattle marked the first city on the trip that both Curt and I had previously been to, so it was the only place where we could really gauge a second impression. Our first trip to the city was during a college summer vacation. We had beautiful sunny weather all three days we were there and we spent most of our time perusing Pike Place Market and keeping the caffeine levels in our systems abnormally high, visiting as many coffee shops as humanly possible over 72 hours. The second trip wasn't all that different, aside from the fact that this time we were staying with friends, so we had some company for our obsessive caffeine ingestion and produce sampling.

Rachael, one of my very dearest friends from home, and her boyfriend Jarvi recently moved into a triplex that already feels like a warm and well lived in home (definitely trumping the cheap motel we stayed at on our first trip). The pull-out in the front room was ours for a few nights and it couldn't have been a better set up, especially since their place is midway between two coffee houses, neither more than a block away. My personal preference was Caffe Vita over Lighthouse Roasters. It's amazing how you can develop a loyalty to one coffee shop over another in less than a week.

Of course, in Seattle there's the opportunity to develop a preference for several coffee shops over others, and that's why this is such a great city (for people like me, at least). A couple other favorites:

For a great, full, flavorful cup of good old fashioned black coffee - Caffe Ladro. You'll think you ordered some fancy schmancy mocha for the punch this coffee packs. Yum.

For a coffee shop to chill at for an hour or two, people watch, sip a decent coffee, and enjoy the scenery - Bauhaus Books and Coffee. Plus, its location on Pine is steps away from tons of interesting shops and cafes.

One coffee shop we didn’t visit was the original Starbucks. You can only tell it’s the original Starbucks because of the line of snapshot taking tourists wrapping around the corner. In every other way, it looks exactly like the Starbucks you might see in Minneapolis, or Germany, or on 50 other corners in Seattle. And while Seattle is the city where Starbucks started - so I guess there’s some sort of cultural relevance there, though it’s a stretch - it is the city where the independent coffee house got its start in America too. We didn’t want to wait half an hour to order a coffee from the place that makes its business out of suffocating the little guys.

We chose not to do the space needle (didn’t do it on the first trip either) because it seemed like an overpriced tourist trap. Correct me if I’m wrong; I might be. The space needle does make for a cool screen print image on a t-shirt, though. We saw one at Pike Place Market, which is also a bit of a tourist trap. What Pike Place Market has going for it though, if you choose to actually buy some things there rather than try to take pictures of flying fish (which don’t fly unless you are purchasing them, FYI), is that it offers some really excellent produce. Peaches that melt in your mouth (and all over your hands) and cherry tomatoes as sweet as candy.

Okay - one more food-related note. Seattle is obviously an excellent place to get coffee. This is not news. What I didn’t know is that it’s the place to get ice cream. Homemade natural ice cream with local ingredients and freshly made waffle cones. So fresh you’re watching the workers pour batter into waffle irons and roll the cones as you wait. So fresh the waffle cone is still warm when you get your ice cream. The place is Molly Moon’s and Rachael and I stood in line there for over 20 minutes at 10 o’clock at night on a Monday. It was worth every second. If you’re in Seattle and you don’t go there, you better be lactose intolerant. That’s all I have to say about that.

As it’s about a three hour straight shot from Portland to Seattle, we missed the bit of coast in between the two. To make up for that, and just to have a nice weekend outside the city, Curt and I went camping with Rachael and Jarvi on the Olympic Peninsula. We took the ferry out there, which was absolutely beautiful but quite windy.

As far as camping went, we lucked out. We found a beautiful spot, no bugs, quiet campsite, and access to a great hiking trail. Apparently, we also lucked out with the hot springs that the trail led to. We found a perfect little hot tub sized hot spring, hung out in the hot tub temperature water, and drank the beers we had picked up on our way in (and which Rachael carried the whole hike up - we thought she was crazy at first and were later very thankful). The four of us felt as though we were visiting a natural spa (and for $16 a night!) The 'spa' feeling waned a little as we read the warning about the hot springs at the trailhead on our way out. You might be wondering why we didn't read it on the way in. I don't really have an answer for you. What I can say is that it warned about contagious bacteria. What I can also say is that none of us caught anything (thankfully!) Reading the sign, we were glad we had at least decided to jump in the frigid waters of the nearby river on our walk out. A little rinse off is always a good idea when it comes to contagious bacteria, I have to assume.

Some less cringe-inducing swimming happened the following day at Crescent Beach, which had the clearest water I've seen in a lake. Ever. We rented a rowboat, took it to the other side of the lake, and washed away any lingering worries about the hot springs.

To round out our swimming experiences, after the possibly contaminated hot spring and freshwater lake, we visited the ocean. The beach we went to had an incredible amount of driftwood and - so exciting for me - tons of starfish (the name of the beach escapes me at the moment, I'm not trying to be selfish with it). We hiked around there for hours and, like the day before it, became so enraptured with what we were doing that we didn't think about getting back to the campsite for dinner until 9:00. So we ate in the dark both nights, but it was worth it. Things like that tend to happen when you're with good friends in beautiful places.

If you go to Seattle, which I think you should, get yourself over to the Olympic Peninsula as well. It's more than worth it. While you're there, though, you might want to avoid Forks. This is the town the Twilight series is based in. It wasn't actually filmed there, nor is there anything to take a picture of that has anything to do with the books or movies besides the town sign. Regardless, the whole town has turned into one big Twilight themed tourist trap. We got lunch at a totally normal seeming restaurant, only to find things like Bella's Favorite Sandwich on the menu. I feel for the locals. And I apologize to any Twilight fans I may have offended in this blog. Til next time ~