Well, I just got back from Seattle, and had an absolute blast there. Some recommendations for the Seattle traveler (or local who hasn’t explored everything yet):

• Agua Verde – a Mexican restaurant on the waterfront near UW
• Restaurant Zoe – fantastic modern (for lack of better description) cuisine. Try the scallops.
• Matt’s on the Market – an out-of-the-way gem that’s to die for. It’s tucked away near Pike’s Place Market, and they don’t take reservations, but it’s worth the wait (they’re also open for lunch on Monday’s with much less waiting). They make the best catfish sandwich ever. Hands down.
• Coffee at the Victrola coffeehouse, followed by dessert at the B&O; coffeehouse, both on Capitol Hill
• Dancing at the Century Ballroom – swing, salsa, whatever, this place is gorgeous.

Also recommended is not getting lost on Mt. Ranier, which we did not manage to do after a very nice hike up to the Carbon River Glacier.

Abby & I came down a different trail than we’d hiked up – it was eventually supposed to reconnect to the original – and could not for our lives find the connection. Until then, the signage had been great, but as the trail crossed the river, there was no indication of where it went. We spent quite a while futilely thrashing through the underbrush (Want some exercise? Try swimming through small pine trees for half a mile.) before we were forced to backtrack almost two miles to the top of the hike. By this time, it was pretty late in the afternoon, and getting dark. Luck was on our side, though, and the dark dirt path was highlighted against the light colored groundcover, which had turned a nice bright yellow for fall. We spent about three more hours slowly following the path in ever-increasing darkness before we made it back to the car. By the end of the hike, under the densest trees, we couldn’t see five feet in front of us. Scary.

While we could have spent the night out there if necessary, it wasn’t gonna be fun, and we both were pretty interested in sleeping in a warm bed rather than huddled in a pine needle nest near a glacier. It was pretty stressful for a while when we couldn’t find the trail, and very frustrating trying to make our way through the forest off the trail, but we did make it back.