So, starting on Thursday, because in my world, the weekend certainly begins on Thursday. It was a study in contrasts: healthy - yoga early in the morning. Not so healthy - Dixie's barbecue for lunch. But barbecue was quite important - when you go overseas, the exotic international food is always interesting and exciting, and South America was no exception. However, there's definitely foods that I had missed too - Thai, Indian, and sushi had already all been taken care of, so barbecue was another void to fill in. The barbecue was, as always, quite excellent, unfortunately Gene, the proprietor, was nowhere to be found, so no 'Man Sauce' to be had. Consequently, no taste buds were forced to commit suicide over the course of lunch.
And here's Gene himself... except, of course, he was nowhere to be found on this fine day!Thursday was also Lott's birthday, but since he's now vaguely responsible (as are apparently most of his friends that are not residing on his couch), the actual party had been pushed off till Friday. And Friday night didn't disappoint, as some 30 of us filed into Liz' apartment, overlooking Pudget Sound and the Olympic mountains, in time for sunset and focused on grilled things and champagne mixed with Eldeflower liquor. Yeah, Eldeflower - I'd never heard of this French concoction before either, but it's quite good. Especially with champagne and a couple raspberries...
By 10 o'clock Saturday morning, the champagne was mostly gone from my system, so I figured it was a good time to be active and play frisbee. 30 minute bike ride to the field up at Greenlake included. Downhill almost the entire way there - yeah! Uphill on the way back... not so good, especiaully after running for two hours... but I am trying to get back in shape, I suppose? Lott was apparently far enough over the champagne by 10AM to play frisbee too, perhaps not far enough to be willing to bike there though... so he showed up by car, 15 minutes after me.
Saturday night, it was time to see more friends I hadn't seen for a better part of 18 months as we were off to Jon and Janna's house for potluck, featuring Jon's smoker (smoked tuna and trout!) and high tech oven contraption in their newly remodeled kitchen - roast beef! They live just a couple of miles away from my old townhouse, so, as an added bonus, I got to see the old neighborhood. And record that not much seems to have changed, except that my former condo complex appears to have a lot of units up for sale. Remaining glad to have sold when I did. Back to roast beef, etc. - amazingly good food makes it easy to justify running and biking for three hours earlier the same afternoon... even if my knee didn't seem to agree entirely...
Ignoring the said knee on Sunday, I was up before 7 and meeting up with Lott and Megan to go on a 15 mile hike to the Necklace Valley Lakes. It's a pretty hike (rated a 10 on the scenery scale according to a guide book Megan had) and it is an agreeably short distance from Seattle. This one also deserves pictures - I wasn't really going to go an entire post without any pictures, whether I'm in some exotic part of the world or not:
Lott excited to be out in the wilderness. Also pictured: equally exciting bridges on the hike
Megan leading the way up
And after gaining about 2,500ft in 2.2 miles, we finally reached the first of the lakes! I kept thinking about just how much more convenient the metric system is - there's five thousand and how many feet in a mile again...?
Heading for lake #2, and lunch... to be followed by a nap in the sunSo, that was my second weekend back in Seattle - see friends, enjoy excellent food, and get out hiking, while the sun's still out in Seattle. End the weekend thoroughly exhausted. Monday would be spent primarily within the confines of the couch, recovering in time to get back out there and play hockey Tuesday night...
As a parting shot, this picture of a funny-looking bus I passed by at Pike Place market, where I felt oddly out of place being surrounded by a sea of tourists:
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