Yes, when you think of Seattle (I write the introduction everyone else has read or written), and you don’t live there, you likely think of (here it comes) rain, drear, and Kurt Cobain (perhaps I should add another parenthetical as an even more meta warning of what has likely been repeated in any article about Seattle and subsequently apologized for (and, alas, I have!)). But this article isn’t about any of that, though I do love the rain and the wind of the city and the almost ideological reluctance to use umbrellas, and certainly drear will come with that from time to time, but I must admit I’ve never been a Kurt Cobain fan. So, I’ll look at three things to do, or rather experience in Seattle and veer quickly away from the clichés or pseuedo-unique, “hidden” treasures.
1. Visit the Lady of the Sea Statue in Anacortes. Then hop on a boat for a tour of the surrounding orcas and islands (that you reserved a month or so earlier). I’ll keep this one short, because you’ll be on the boat for four or five hours.
2. Read a Sherman Alexie story. Then take a walkabout through downtown Seattle and its outskirts. This may not relate to the story you choose to read (you can find a few online), and you may not get anything out of it at the time. But grab a book, sit at a cafe or a diner and read. Watch people walk by or the people sitting around you and get into the feel of things. Then, as mentioned, simply walk until you’re hungry and walk into the first place that strikes you – not the first place that looks familiar, and read another Sherman Alexie story.
3. Take a trip up to Bellingham. You may or may not have heard of this town – if you live outside the Pacific Northwest, you likely haven’t. That’s okay – just remember: go Vikings! You can get to Bellingham from Seattle by a one leg bus in under two hours or in a car in just over one, though if you’re driving I recommend taking the scenic route and taking Chuckanut Drive as soon as you see the exit for it off I-5 (#231). Thank me later. Once you’re there, stop off near the university and take a hike up the Sehome Arboretum to the outlook and just sit for a while, looking out. Unless you arrive in the afternoon, in which case wait until night, then do it again in the morning. The view is the same, but the feelings are entirely different and rewarding. Now, you’ve done this, and you’re thinking, “What now?” What now? Just walk around. From the university to downtown is a thirty minute stroll, from the university to Fairhaven is a forty minute stroll, from the university to Lake Whatcom is at most a twenty minute drive. You are in the thick of it here: where the sea scrapes against the land and the land scales into the mountains.
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