I’m in Seattle visiting my brother Ken, and we recently took two road trips through the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. This is Part I, our first trip.
We set out around 1pm from Ken’s friend Deb and Nicole’s condo in Capitol Hill where I’m staying.
Our first stop is Sushi Land, a cool-ass conveyor belt sushi chain popular on the West Coast. It’s located in Bellevue, a suburb just east of Seattle.
The sushi whirs around the belt in pieces of two nigiri, or more if it’s a roll, and you can grab whatever you like. The plates are color-coded for $1, $1.50, $2 and $3.
It’s really a bargain. Although you would think low-priced sushi would be something to avoid at all costs, for both taste and health reasons, it’s actually really really good sushi. Almost everything tastes great. The fish is fresh, and the plentiful bounty of ocean delights that winds its way past you in your seat makes your mouth water with every turn and curve of the conveyor belt.
Ken and I are both psyched because one of our favorite nigiri plates, the seared salmon, has been taken down from $3 to $2. Score!
So we feast for about an hour. All in all, we eat 15 plates, and the total with tip comes to $40. I mean seriously? Like 25 pieces each of high-quality sushi for $20? Come to New York immediately, please, Sushi Land.
Then again, it could be kind of crazy in NYC, with fights breaking out over who grabbed the mackerel first.
I could just picture Anthony from Bay Ridge duking it out with Rasheed from Harlem at a Times Square location, fighting over something stupid like who’s wasabi side dish that is.
In Seattle, most everyone is either white or Asian, and it’s just a much more mellow vibe.
And when I say white, I don’t mean ethnic Italian-American, or Irish, or Polish, or “ethnic” white of any kind. It’s just wonder bread white here, with the typical lineage being from either England or the staid Scandinavian countries. So there’s no fights over sushi, that’s for sure.
We finish our lunch and head Southeast in Ken’s 2005 Hyundai Sonata around 1:30pm. It’s barely ten minutes since we left Bellevue, and already we’re on winding rural country roads.
The trees are about a million feet tall. I mean they’re nothing like East Coast trees. They’re just massive, is what they are. They’re also beautiful, and I find myself starting to breath deeper as we head further into the country. We make a brief stop in Issaquah, which is about 30 miles from Seattle. We check out a salmon hatchery park, and we also buy some water. There are no salmon in the river though, and nothing seems to be hatching either, so we move on.
We’re generally following the curving arc of Lake Sammamish, which is a stunningly beautiful lake that’s lined by some incredibly large and ornate houses. It’s kind of a like a mini-Riviera on a rural Washington lake.
We stop at Kinkassett State Park with the thought of checking it out. But we would have to buy a day pass to enter, and it’s already mid-afternoon so it’s not really worth it. Instead we content ourselves with 15-minute parking and take a quick stroll through the park.
The park rangers at the ranger station are friendly, but I get the feeling they can tell we ain’t from ‘round these parts. They must be used to Seattle people checking out the natural country near the city, but the way the female ranger jumps up from her seat and aggressively asks Ken “what can I do for you?” puts me on alert.
We might as well be wearing “Seattle/Big City/Jewish/New York City/We’re Brothers But You Might Think We’re Gay” across our foreheads.
In any case, it’s no big deal. People in these parts are more and more used to the gay thing, and Seattle is a proud epicenter of gay life in the Pacific Northwest. They’re a little less used to or comfortable with the Jewish thing out here, and Ken has been stopped on more than one occasion by people who just want to ask him if he’s Jewish. Like he’s an exhibit in a museum or something. “Look honey, a Jew!”
But no matter, most people out here mean well. So we roll on. We continue to traverse winding road after winding rural road, with super tall majestic Evergreen trees lining the roadsides. I feel deep in my insides, in my heart, my mind and my soul, that I’m somehow closer to God out here. I’m not religious at all, but this trip is kind of a religious experience for this New York City boy. It’s incredible.
We slow down along a country road and there are horses, incredible horses, just standing in a meadow by the fence. Ken pulls up closer to them, and one beautiful chestnut horse in particular freezes and just stares at us. I feel as if he’s looking into my soul.
Next we pass a field where a bunch of tiny little yellow ducks with green beaks waddle towards us. There must be at least ten or fifteen of them. We slow down and watch as they walk our way, then take a turn and walk the other way.
Why thank you, little chickadees, so nice to see you, come back anytime. It really is a lovely experience.
We keep going, and about fifteen minutes later we slow down again to check out a peacock sauntering past us on the left side of the road. It’s plume is tucked in, but you can still see its incredible feathers and it’s purple belly. What an amazing animal.
The peacock is crossing the road. But he’s not rushing, he’s taking his sweet time. I mean, why the hell not take your time if you’re a peacock, right? What’s the rush? Just chill out and live your sweet peacock life, you splendid bird.
Around 6pm we start making our way back to Seattle. I’m feeling kind of giddy, so I start copying everything Ken says, just repeating it all like I was in 3rd grade. Ken gets annoyed for a second, and then he returns the favor and starts doing it to me.
So we’re stuck in an endless feedback loop of “Wow that sky is really beautiful. What should we have for dinner?” It’s just hilarious, but also annoying. Maybe more annoying than hilarious.
Around 7:30pm we reach Renton, which is a Seattle suburb where the Seahawks practice, for all you football fans out there. The sun is still fairly high in the sky, because it doesn’t get dark this far North until around 10pm. Seattle is, in fact, 850 miles North of NYC as the crow flies.
I’m pretty tired by now, but we need to get some groceries first, so we stop at a Fred Meyer supermarket. I buy a bottle of Jack Daniels and a diet Mountain Dew, and Ken gets some fresh tomatoes and parsley, and some sour cream. He’s going to make an egg, tomato, sour cream and caviar pie for dinner tonight, so I’m psyched.
Supermarkets on the West Coast, or at least the ones in Washington State, are massive. The Fred Meyer that we’re at is about ten times larger than the Key Food I shop at in Queens, NY, which makes it a more relaxing experience.
But at the same time, it’s also more stressful. You’ve got all this fluorescent light, and a million people, and machines dinging and beeping. Plus they’re not just selling food, they’re selling jewelry and sneakers and housewares and even furniture.
The combination of all these people and the lights and the noise and all this stimuli couldn’t be more different from where we were twenty minutes ago on those lovely rural roads. This Fred Meyer is just stressing me out, is what’s happening.
Finally we pay for our stuff, hop in the Hyundai, and make the short trip to Ken’s apartment in Capitol Hill. Ken gets to work on the egg pie, and I pop on the TV to see what the F is up in the world.
Not much, it seems. The US meeting with North Korea is off, then it’s on again, then it’s off. Trump called someone fat. Trump used a lot of exclamation points in a tweet. Whatever! Who really cares, I ask myself.
Because today was a great day, and it really took me out of my own head. I forgot about my own career struggles, and I forgot about Trump, and about North Korea, and the EU, and Brexit, and the whole world at large.
I just focused on those fantastic country roads, and the horses, and the ducks, and the peacock, and I just let myself be.
I think we all need to do things like that more often. Maybe then we wouldn’t be screaming at each other so much. After all, who likes to scream? I know I don’t.
So thank you to the country roads of Washington State. I’ll definitely be back.
