Disclaimer: This post is one of those that ended up being (mostly) written years after the experience was had. While there was a paragraph or two posted way back then with a single photo, there were no other notes taken, so most of what is shared here must be extracted from the images and what memories they may have lent us.

Here we are in Seattle, Washington, on the 71st day that we’ve been out traveling this year and the last vacation day of the year. You might wonder why we hadn’t just flown into Portland, Oregon, as so much of our trip happened down on the Oregon Coast. Well, it’s a combination of things. Maybe first and foremost will be our first stop today, which you’ll learn about shortly, but there’s also the consideration of plane ticket cost, whether the flight is non-stop, and the price of the rental car at the airport we fly into. We have to keep in mind that while gasoline cost alone might make it cheaper to drive, there is also the cost of about three extra nights to drive back and forth, depreciation on the car, and time denied along the coast.

While Caroline flew into Seattle years ago to attend an introduction to e-books put on by Microsoft back in 1999, this is our first time taking a few hours to explore the city together. Come to think of it, I don’t think Caroline saw anything of the city as she went directly to Redmond. This introduction will be incredibly brief as by 3:30, we’ll be on our way to the airport to drop the rental car and be there in time for our early evening flight back to Phoenix. To those of the future, our roundtrip flight cost $590 for the two of us and took about 3 hours in each direction.

Today was a big day for Caroline: We visited Earthues in Seattle, Washington. For fiber dyers, Earthues is Mecca, a veritable Harrods of natural color extracts and dyes. This small out-of-the-way shop is unique in all of America as one of the best sources of dyeing materials and what is most likely one of the world’s most extensive libraries of dyeing techniques. Founder Michele Wipplinger was not in today as the shop is usually closed on Mondays, but her partner in the business, Kathy Hattori, had made an appointment with us prior to our visit to open, especially for Caroline.

Kathy and Caroline got right to work looking at what dyes were on hand and how much Caroline might like to leave with. Typical of German sensibility, Caroline tried to remain conservative, but after some needling and prodding to remind her that this was possibly her one good opportunity to get what she wanted, she let caution fly and bought a near-lifetime supply of every color. Add in some mordants and some henna, and she was set to go. What she did not let me know was that she was eyeballing two rather pricey books.

Guilt shamed her into deciding she couldn’t have them – until, like on so many other occasions, regret after getting home had her wishing she’d bought them as, while expensive, they were less costly here than at other sources. Lunch was taken at the Sunlight Cafe, a vegetarian place a few miles away recommended by Inga, who works at Earthues.

(Sadly, in 2014, the shop closed, and the business turned to mail order only.)

My big moment in Seattle was our visit to Pikes Place Market, where we stumbled upon Beechers Handmade Cheese company, which made visiting the first Starbucks nearly irrelevant.

First, some background, though: on our first day of this trip, while in Portland, we stopped at a store called New Seasons for supplies and bought a block of Beechers’ Flagship Reserve and just loved it. We had wondered along the way if we’d be able to find more of this cheese on our trip when, just before leaving back to Phoenix, Arizona, there it was – the factory itself. You should be so lucky someday to try their grilled cheese sandwich – yowza.

This palate of color and diversity of fresh fruit and veggies, not to mention the meat and fish out of frame, pushes home the fact that we live in not only a cultural desert but a bit of a food desert, too. Then again, Seattle has over 300 cloudy days a year compared to Phoenix, with about 300 sunny days per year. It’s not always easy to maintain perspective when confronted with such a riot of experiences while on vacation.