Summer's coming.

They don't call it the Evergreen State for nothing.
Ah, what glory, the seasons! After what's been a relatively dry winter for Seattle, April unleashed days on end of relentless rain. This weekend, the sun finally emerged again - just in time to illuminate all the beautiful flowers and greenery that have blossomed under profuse watering last month.

Because all of my prior visits to Seattle occurred between late April and early June, I'd really had no concept of the Northwest during any season but the verdant, sunny one. In the past few rainy, gray months, I'd almost forgotten that I'm living in the same city with which I fell in love five years ago. But this weekend - with the skies blue and cloudless, the air crisp and humidity-free, the sliding glass walls of open-air cafes pushed aside to let in the summer breeze, and all the people outside basking in the sunshine - I was reminded.

Not that I don't still have some appreciation for the rain. Two friends from work, Jenica and James, and I miraculously all had a shared day off this week. Though I found what seemed like a great hike for us off of the infamous Mountain Loop Highway, my plans were foiled by a late-season snowstorm in the North Cascades. Instead, we stuck to lower elevations and went for a rainy trek to see Wallace Falls:


This area typically draws a lot of hiker traffic, but because of the weather, we had the trail and the falls pretty much to ourselves. And even though we missed out on some views due to the heavy mist, it was kind of nice to hike in fog; light rain can be really therapeutic, in ways...cleansing, renewing. And just a little more hardcore than your usual, sunny day hike :)


Supposedly, the Olympic Mountains are on the other side of all that mist.


The trees were gorgeous and stunning, as always.
Also: best trailhead sign ever. We had a photoshoot at it on our way out.




As with all good hikes, we finished up with - what else? - a trip to Grocery Outlet. There's one in Monroe, which happily, meant all new random surplus groceries to explore! Needless to say, we enjoyed some fantastic snacks on our drive back to the city...including: oatmeal raisin cookies, milk chocolate with sea salt almond nibs, and lots of tasty trail mix. Jenica needed to go home, but James and I rounded out the evening at an old favorite - the Hopvine Pub on Capitol Hill - for yummy soup and the beginning of open mic night.

I'm just happy summer is on its way - and for once, it won't mean 100+ degree temperatures and stifling humidity. Instead, it's going to mean: many more mountain adventures, fresh fruit smoothies, camp outs, backyard barbecues, summer concerts, long runs again, playing outside with friends, hiking the Grand Canyon this July, swimming in Lake Washington, riding my bike, and more mornings like this one: having no trouble waking up at 6 a.m. because sunshine was pouring through my windows.

Peace out, Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Lake Serene, Baseball, and Missing Kitty Shenanigans

Can rainbows redeem my lack of blog entries in a couple weeks?
At Camba's recommendation, Alan and I hiked to the scenic Bridal Veil Falls and Lake Serene yesterday. It was a gorgeous day for it, and in keeping with my promise to myself to rein in my schedule, I had a whole day off to enjoy the outing. Good thing, too, as it being the last day of ski season at Stevens Pass made Highway 2 an absolute mess to get back on in the evening. Alan and I wound up stopping in the tiny town of Gold Bar for post-hike burgers to try and wait out the traffic jam heading back west - an effort that helped mildly, but which we supplemented with GPS navigation to make our way back on winding, county roads rather than sitting in standstill traffic on Highway 2. (Appropriately, Cake's "Long Line of Cars" came on my stereo's IPod shuffle during all this.) Overall, the drive back was more or less a trial effort in our plans for summer of 2011 to drive Alan's 1968 Chevelle from Ohio to Seattle, avoid interstates and chain restaurants, taking scenic state roads instead and exploring Mom-and-Pop places the whole way.


Bridal Veil Falls.
But back to the hike itself. We had a phenomenal time on the mountain - gorgeous, sunny weather that greeted us at the trailhead with spring warmth, but rewarded us with cooler breezes in the denser, shadier forests toward the top.


The route we hiked, about 8 miles roundtrip, traversed everything from scenic valley overlooks off the sides of sloping mountains to dense old-growth forest, from picturesque, cascading waterfalls to deep, slippery snowfields.




Understandably, there were many others out on the trail, but we also had large stretches to ourselves, including a quiet, secluded bench by the side of the still-snow-covered Lake Serene at the top.


In other adventures of late: We went to our first Mariners game on Saturday evening, and watched a decent victory over Detroit. (Sadly, I had to work until 3 p.m. and so missed out on the Sounders' triumph over Kansas City earlier that day.) We walked to the stadium from our apartment in the pouring rain and even soaked as we were by the time we got there, felt lucky to not have to mess with stadium parking.


Although I still maintain that soccer games are approximately 300 times as exciting and exhilarating to watch as baseball games, I nevertheless enjoyed the novelty of what was probably my second professional baseball game ever :)

And, in misadventures of the week...Chloe has been getting herself into all kinds of reckless trouble. Two days ago, we returned home to find that she'd somehow managed to more or less strangled herself with a plastic bag (notably, with a "Keep away from infants and small children" warning label on it...but what of cats?)


And this morning, we slept in and had a conversation a bit like this:

Alan: Hey, did you hear that racket Chloe was making in the kitchen last night?
Me: (Laughs) Yes...she's crazy.

Then it slowly seemed to dawn us both that it was late in the morning and no kitty had come pawing at our faces for breakfast (a daily event that almost always chronologically beats my alarm clock.)

Me: Chloe?

And...nothing. I got up in horror, searching the apartment high and low, before realizing we'd left a tiny window in the bedroom just barely cracked to let in the breeze last night - and sure enough, there were tiny kitty pawprints in the dust on the ledge outside of it. My heart sunk.

I can write about it now with some lightness, but let's be honest - I was a serious wreck this morning, walking dejectedly around the block with Alan, shaking some food in a tupperware bowl and imagining all the miserably, lonely mornings ahead without my beloved kitty cat. Our neighbor across the hall saw us poking around behind the apartment and mentioned that Chloe had jumped up on the ledge of their bedroom window at about 6:30 this morning, scaring the living daylights out of their dog, Lucy. They hadn't seen her since.

After several laps around the block and no hope in sight, Alan and I returned to the apartment. Plodding up the staircase to our back porch, with tears just on the verge of pouring out my ducts...there she was: Chloe, wedged almost completely out of sight, down between the back stairs and the adjacent trellis. There were leaves and twigs all over her face, her claws were out, her body taut and shaking slightly. Not a motion had been made on her part when we'd shaken her food container multiple times within a few yards of her. Our best guess is that Lucy must have barked up a storm this morning and scared Chloe so badly that she'd stayed frozen in hiding there until we found there.

Here I'd been imagining her having all sorts of adventures in the big city, feasting in dumpsters, nuzzling strangers' ankles and trotting off down to Pioneer Square without me...but there she'd been, about eight feet away from our back door, waiting in frozen terror for God knows what. Regardless, I'm relieved to have my kitty back home safe again, doing somersaults all over my lesson books as I attempt to prep my tutoring lessons. I can only hope her kitty shenanigans will mellow back out in the coming weeks...


Postscript: Trees in the Northwest are awesome.

Cherry blossoms and waterfalls

Spring is here!


In the final week of February, the city of Seattle has exploded with color. True to its slogan, Washington truly has stayed "ever" green all winter long, as evidenced by many of the photos I've been posting from runs, hikes, etc. this whole season. But now that the weather's been pretty consistently warm for awhile (I think I read somewhere that the temperature hasn't dropped below freezing here since December?), other colors are returning to the spectrum of fauna - urban and otherwise. Most notably, the cherry blossom trees have exploded into full bloom, which are *amazing*!


Though the fact is obvious, I have to remind myself that this is my first time ever experiencing this time of year in the Northwest - and I'm really enjoying the novelty and beauty of it all. I hope that five, ten, twenty years from now - assuming I'm still living in this part of the country - I still appreciate it as much as I am now.

On a hike with a couple friends yesterday, we got on to the topic of the changing seasons, and weather in the Northwest in general. Cam, who grew up in Washington state, was thrilled by the 100+ degree week last summer (my first week in Seattle) simply because once you live somewhere long enough and get accustomed to the weather patterns, anything extreme and out of the ordinary is cause for celebration. Likewise, the snowstorm here last year had its fair share of exciting moments for Northwest natives as well. But for me, it's the very mildness of the seasons here that's enthralling. I've had my fair share of blistering heat and humidity in Kansas, and vicious ice storms and blizzards in Kansas and Ohio alike, and the fact that the temperature's generally wavered between 40 and 65 degrees for the vast majority of my first seven months in the Northwest is just fine by me.

As for the afore-mentioned hike...rockin! We traversed a relatively flat route along a burbling creek, occasionally punctuated with little waterfalls, bridges, washed out trail crossings, and other fun bits of scenery:


Unlike many of the other hiking routes I've tried out in the past few months, this one we had almost entirely to ourselves. Without much elevation or many territorial views, we took joy instead in the simple, sensory landscape around us - making note of several promising swimming holes come summer time here, as well as some possible mountain-biking routes. We hiked out to Otter Falls, a towering, slick rock face with a cascading waterfall sliding down the entire width of its facade...really beautiful sight.


Being silly, I pose with the falls.


Cam, Jenica and I don our game faces.
On the trek back, Cam noticed a little side trail that had been flagged. We decided to explore it - a narrow, unmaintained, and rather vertical little jaunt into the depths of the forest...and more or less stumbled on a giant fairy tale land (much like in Avatar, Home Tree and all) of huge, old-growth cedars. Pictures, as usual, can't do them justice, but they'll try nonetheless.


Overall, a grand adventure of a day. Barely made it back to Seattle in time for my evening work shift, but I made it happen. Now enjoying a lazy, sunny/cloudy catch-up day around the apartment before heading out for an afternoon of adventure in the woods north of Seattle with barefoot running, MovNat and homemade pizza! Finally...not enough Northwest in your life? Cam blogs too. Read his account of our adventure here!

Big Girl Life in Seattle

Well, in an attempt to break from the theme that's dominated my blog for the last several entries...a recap of the highs and lows of my life in the domestic realm of late!

GREAT SUCCESS, 2010:

I've finally decided to get serious about cooking. This will probably last about as long as it already has - five days - but so far, so good. Awhile ago, I bought a fancy spice rack and a bunch of big, glass containers to hold all my grains and pastas and flour and everything, in a desperate attempt to inspire myself to move beyond my comfy world of salads and ham/cheese sandwiches. My first step in changing things up was a burrito week, in which my grocery trip comprised of unusual items (for me) like sour cream, avocado, tortillas, some canned chicken breast, and a supersize bag of cheddar cheese...and for one week straight, I enjoyed every meal and felt very pleased with myself for doing something different food-wise. But my stomach suffered, and I probably gained approximately a pound a day (thought that wouldn't be possible running the kind of mileage I have been, but it happened) and so I've moved on and this week, actually managed to do something good for my body.

I spent last Thursday and Friday cooking up a storm - made a bunch of quinoa with mustard greens and tempeh (thanks Kyle for the inspiration!), a green chile egg casserole (thanks Becca for the recipe!), and a big ol' vat of vegan chili (thanks to this awesome cookbook). I'm still enjoying great meals from all of those cooking endeavors! And no, I'm not reverting back to my vegetarian/vegan days, but I do believe that maintaining a largely plant-based diet is generally a good thing...and I'm trying to cut down on gluten consumption in general, too. I find that the more I run/train, the better fuel I put in my body - so it's a productive cycle. Anyway, the idea is that the more I cook ahead of time, the healthier I eat throughout my busy work weeks, rather than reverting to quick, easy, but often nutrient-deficient, meals.

Other successes: finally managed to set up a decent paper-filing system for myself. Coming from someone who tends to throw the majority of my daily mail into a dark corner of my apartment where I don't have to look at it, this was a big step in feeling a little less chaos in my life. And subsequently, no epic fails yet in the newly-developed bill-paying aspect of my life:


Paying bills is AWESOME.
I also managed to "build" five whole pieces of furniture, all by myself. Granted, IKEA does a pretty darn good job with their instructions, but still...


Chloe ponders the odd-sized IKEA box.


Chloe is skeptical of my abilities. Probably for good reason.


But aha, I prevail! Chloe expresses her approval with zombie eyes.
The other four pieces are dining room chairs. No picture, but I'm pleased. So now, someday when I finish the 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle I've overzealously begun working on our dining room table, I'll be able to officially host a dinner party!

EPIC FAIL, 2010:

Some of you know my cooking history - and for those who do, you've already had your mind blown by the above section. Some of you, however, probably don't yet grasp just how miserably inept I am when it comes to cooking, and thus here's the real mind-blowing clincher of the year thus far: I failed my second lifetime attempt to make mac 'n cheese. (The first time was winter term, freshman year at Oberlin. Pathetically, it was Easy Mac. I just dumped the noodles in a bowl and put them in the microwave just like that. No water or anything.)

This time around, I boiled a bunch of water, then dumped in not only the macaroni, but all the cheese powder, too - naturally, six cups of cheesy water got drained out at the end, and the result was slightly yellow-tinged, absolutely flavorless macaroni. Awesome.

COMBO EPIC FAIL/GREAT SUCCESS 2010:

Apparently, after Christmas is over, the tree doesn't just magically disappear from your living room one day in early January. I swear, back in the day, it did. But no longer...and so it came to be the second week of February and the Christmas tree was still cowering in a corner, shedding its needles in mass. Yes, I gave getting rid of it some thought here and there...I had researched tree-recycling options in Seattle. I printed out directions to a recycling center. Once the dates passed for that, I sent my landlord a sad little email to the effect of, "Um, I know it's the end of January, but any thoughts on what to do with my Christmas tree at this point?"

She didn't even dignify it with a response.

Thank goodness for friends who like to destroy things. Jess came over this evening with a jeweler's saw, and paired with my serrated bread knife, we made quick work of the little guy. Photo diary of our systematic tree-dismantling:








Yup. I think I'm doing all right at this Life/Real World thing. Not spectacularly...but definitely all right. Next entry: more photos from race weekend, and likely, back to my usual ramblings about running. (Though I have been meaning to do an entry soon about all the books I've read in the last few months. I know I wrote at one point that I'd review books regularly; obviously, that's working out a lot like the mac 'n cheese...but I have been reading, and at some point I'll certainly address those good reads here on my blog.)

Another beautiful day in the mountains

Cascadias and me, atop Big Si.
The saga of my shoes continues, as I talked my way in to a last-minute spot in a 25K trail race in a few weeks that goes up and down Mount Constitution in the San Juan Islands. 25K is approximately 15.53 miles - should be nothing, given that I ran a full 26.2 a couple months ago?

WRONG. Trail running is a different beast entirely, and I'm now breaking all the cardinal rules of training in hopes that I can whip my butt into shape for this thing in the next seventeen days. I have done approximately no serious trail runs in my life except for my meager little 4.5-miler up Little Si last week. (In other dumb, overzealous news in my outdoorsy life this week, I've been hobbling around with sore calves for the past two days after doing an overly ambitious (but awesome in the moment!) 7-miler in my Fivefingers...) And so today, with the sun shining brilliantly and nearly 60-degree weather, I once again drove out to North Bend in hopes of tackling the quad-and-calf-busting 8.5 miler up and down the full, 4100-foot-tall Mount Si.


This picture courtesy of Wikipedia. No, I saw no cows today.
One of my coworkers, Ali, is really into trail running, and is determined to convert me from my road-running ways. And I can see why; the views are more spectacular, the race fees much lower, and the sport as a whole just a lot humbler and quieter than all the flashy-fanfare of road races. Not that I'll ever stop doing road races altogether, as running Cleveland is high on my priority list for the spring...but I can certainly see the appeal of trail running.

Ali's take on it is, "You don't race against the clock. You just try to survive and get yourself across that finish line."

That might seem a little dramatic, but I can honestly say, after today, it's absolutely accurate. On the way up Si, I felt pretty much mentally on par with where I was during miles 22-26 of my marathon: absolutely drained, weak, trying to run but my body deciding at its own whim to walk instead, hunched over, heaving for breath, miserable, wallowing in the depths of discouragement, wondering why the hell I put myself through this kind of stuff. I doubt if I "ran" more than 15% of the whole way up, hiking in the intervals between and feeling totally discouraged about what I've signed myself up for.


But...the camaraderie of other hikers helps. As I was running up, I'd pass guys coming down who'd say things like, "It's really windy at the top; watch out for it!", and know, then, that I had to make it up there. Turning back simply wasn't an option. But I sure felt like it! The winds, indeed, were really intense around the top, and somehow, being up there with nothing but my sneakers, a light jacket, and a little Camelbak strapped to my back...made the wind seem scarier?

The views at the top, however, were awe-inspiring. My camera doesn't do any of them justice, but:






And then...dessert: running back down the mountain. The whole, glorious 40-minute way down, I hit the biggest runner's high ever, leaping over roots and rocks and pounding the dirt and switchbacks faster than I ever run on flat ground. I couldn't stop thinking about two things: (1) how similar trail running is to snowboarding in certain ways: your heart nearly explodes through your chest from pounding so hard, and you're burning holes through your muscles, but you don't care, because the adrenaline rush is so powerful. You don't stop. The wind against your face, the stunning views, the tree-dodging, the trust you put into your speed...and you hit the bottom, exhilarated and your legs shaky and about to collapse out from under you. Glorious!!! The big difference is just that with snowboarding, you get a free lift to the top; with trail running, you run your ass off in order to earn your ride down.

My (2) thought was how amazing the human brain is. It's capable of absorbing so much visual information about my environment so quickly, and making split-second, unconscious decisions about each and every footfall, as my eyes were already ten steps ahead, navigating what was to come, instead of the ground beneath my feet. So awesome.


Miraculously, I made it the whole way down without any scrapes or falls or twisted ankles...and I even got a bit of a (horribly shaky, sorry!) video to capture the experience as best I could on camera: (It gets fun about 20 seconds in, when you can start to hear my individual footsteps and my labored breathing...)


P.S. Headline today in the Seattle Times: Could Be Seattle's Warmest January Ever.

Test driving my new shoes

One of the really nice perks of my job is the opportunity to buy gear directly from vendors at a deeply discounted rate. Admittedly, it's a dangerous perk - but one that, given that a good deal of my annual budget goes toward running/outdoorsy gear already, is most appreciated. My Christmas presents to myself this year were some new footwear - the aforementioned Vibram Fivefingers, a few pairs of Injini toe socks to accompany them, and a pair of the new Brooks Cascadia 5's - a trail running shoe partially designed by Seattle's own (and my longtime hero) ultrarunner Scott Jurek.

All the new colors of the Cascadia 5's look fairly hideous online. I finally settled on what I considered to be the least hideous color of all - a scheme that Brooks likes to call "Spicy Wasabi/Cedar/Black/Silver/Pavement"...whatever that means! In the flesh, the shoes look quite different than online - I've gotten everything from "algae" to "pond scum" to "pistachio" from various coworkers I polled. (It's impossible to walk anywhere in these guys without commentary.) Regardless, they're *slightly* less hideous than I thought they'd be, which is a bummer, as it'll tempt me to wear them around in daily life - generally a bad idea if I'm looking to extend their shelf life as a useful, technical shoe for running up and down mountains.


Sitting atop a small peak, overlooking the Cascades
But! I have taken them out for several exciting test runs this week. The first was a fairly spur-of-the-moment, total impulse run up Little Si a couple days ago before I had to go into work for REI's overnight inventory. I threw an apple, a bottle of water, and a rain jacket into a backpack and took off for North Bend, a small town about 30 miles east of Seattle, and notably, home of the infamous "Twin Peaks" show. It took me about an hour to run to the top (hiking/walking about 30% of the uphill, as this was my first real attempt at a technical trail run) and back down again (so much fun on the way down!). The views from the top were nice:



Today, the Cascadias got to come along for a sweet ride. Several friends from work and I went mountain biking in an obscure old logging forest, also about 35 miles outside of Seattle. There were literally thousands of acres of old growth forest, and all still in their full, lush glory, because so many trees in the Northwest are evergreens or moss-covered or whatever else that manages to survive, green and vibrant, all winter long! We stuck mostly to old logging roads - easier than any real technical mountain trails, but still a big, rocky, gravelly, and occasionally hilly mess for which I was infinitely grateful to have the mountain bike Jeff loaned me. We had the entire forest to ourselves for the five or so hours we were out, with some sporadic rain that made the whole day a muddy pit of fun.

Album from the day:


hxc.


Picture of the day? Jeff rides ahead into the sunlight.


Territorial view.


Sandwich-and-bourbon break!


Waterfall/cascading river/mountains/trees. Yes please!


Muddy legs. Shoes still fluorescently pondscum-like.


Jenica and me, 37 miles later.
Doing this definitely beat going to work. Although hours are way down now that the holidays are over, I'm enjoying every minute of the free time I finally have after a long push through the hard stuff!

Free your feet, and your mind will follow.

Yesterday was fantastic. Just a perfect Seattle day, in every way. I only worked a short shift in the morning - so my whole day didn't disappear, but I still got the pleasure of seeing many of my favorite people, and getting to do what I've honestly come to love - impart knowledge and help outfit people for their worldly adventures in the great outdoors!

Got off work, changed into running gear, and made the short and scenic drive up to Shoreline to meet up with Tom for further trail running and playing in the woods. For the first time, I tried out my brand new Vibram Fivefingers - a crazy but generally awesome innovation designed to help your feet mimic barefoot motion, but still get protection underfoot from the elements. The first word out of my mouth about ten seconds into our run was, "Ow." I felt everything. I described the experience as that feeling you get when you get a rock in your shoe, except there were a dozen of them, and no getting rid of them.


This is what they look like.
With that said, though, there's something cool about being that...ONE, for lack of a better word...with your environment. Seyeon's gotten really into running in Fivefingers, not to mention a good many of my coworkers. (Though for every one of them who swears by them, there's another ten who shun the things as though they're the devil's creation, and upon figuring out I got myself a pair, will undoubtedly denounce me as a lost and brainwashed soul, looking like a complete dork to boot.)

As Tom and I were climbing around and balancing on rails in the park, we did get asked by a guy walking by how we liked them. He'd had a friend or two who'd gotten some and loved them. I have this conversation twenty-five times a day with customers at work, as REI is the only place in a 500-mile radius that carries the Fivefingers, and we get more questions about them than just about anything else in the department (though UGG boots (i.e. glorified socks, priced at a hefty $140-$220/pair) are a close second. *Sigh.*)

Anyway. I needed that run, badly. The sun, the mountains, the forest, the joyous ache in my muscles for working new ones amidst the trees... Sinking my toes into the damp forest ground by Hidden Lake wasn't too shabby either. I think I'm going to like this "barefoot" running thing.

As I drove back into the city, I witnessed one of the most stunning sunsets I've ever seen. Words nor pictures can even begin to do it justice, but I did get off at a random exit to surge to the top of a hill and try, at least:


My dad's in Seattle now for the weekend (after a harrowing 26 hour trip to get here - damn you, Midwest snow!), so I'm looking forward to a few more days off from work, explorations, adventures, good food, and getting to share this lovely city with someone I love! Happily, I got to do just that last week, too, as Shari spent a few unexpected extra days in Seattle with me, and even though I had to work through a good deal of them, we had a good time staying up, catching up, and eating chocolate pasta.

Lastly...Oberlin and Kansas Run-ins of the Week:
1. Running into Celeste from Harkness Co-op at the local Trader Joe's
2. Sean, whom I played intramural soccer with, showing up to REI with his whole family
3. Randomly hopping on a bus in the U-District only to find Lu, my fellow Muser from high school, on it!
4. Haven't run into each other yet, but my elementary school friend Caitlin just moved to Seattle this week - cheers!

Endorphin-fueled musings on my crazy coworkers...among other things

I am transforming, and it's an awesome feeling. I have felt more consistently happy and calm and unstressed and myself than ever before, and I owe it to several factors, the following of which I'll explore here: life stage, environment, endorphins, and friendships.

I feel liberated, not being in school anymore. The academic environment, undoubtedly, is exciting, and powerful and motivating and wonderful, all at once...and I'd be lying to say I don't miss being in it. But I am so grateful, too, to be beyond that period in my life, to have more freedom, fewer constraints, more responsibility and independence.

Not that this life is without stress...but it feels more manageable than school stress did. There's so much pressure in college - academically, to push yourself, to please professors, to accomplish, to exceed all expectations...and socially, even at a purportedly nonconformists' haven, to "fit in" with the status quo, to want to always be in big group situations, to go out every weekend, to not "be lame" and stay in or go to bed early or ever spend time alone. Until I got to enjoy small-town Ohio post-graduation, and spend time off campus too, and with people not just my own age/race/socioeconomic status/etc, I think I really, really struggled with Oberlin.

Which leads me to: Seattle! Another big factor in my transformation. And along with that, REI. It's still too early to tell whether my REI friends are a good selection sample for all of Seattle, but if so, this is truly, truly my kind of city. It's been criticized for being a socially cold city - albeit a polite one, but one that's difficult to break into beyond surface pleasantries. But I feel like you could make that case for just about any city, especially as a young adult who's been accustomed his/her whole life to situations (grade school, summer camps and programs, team sports, college, study abroad programs, etc.) that make not making friends just about impossible. No matter where you are, it's hard to be thrown into a totally new place and try to develop meaningful friendships from the ground up. It involves a certain level of effort - to get out of your own apartment, to be bold, to be open-minded, to occasionally take the reins and organize gatherings, to be willing to try new things...

But in other ways, the friendships I've made here just...make sense. Instead of being friends with somebody because you're thrown into the same situation (class, dorm, house, etc.), friendships are built on mutual passions. Here, I have hiked, run, walked, biked, and played in the woods with acquaintances who, in turn, have become close friends. There are plans in the works also: snowshoeing, camping, serious trail running, snowboarding, and maybe someday, mountaineering. Anybody who's been in touch with me in the last two years knows how much I adored my coworkers at Dick's in Ohio - but honestly, I was a little bummed after I got hired there to realize that most everybody there was more fan than athlete. Not that sports retail is my lifelong career track, but I'd definitely sought out that job in hopes that I'd meet fellow runners and hikers and lovers of the outdoors, and it just didn't quite happen that way in Ohio. (Though I got other wonderful, unexpected gifts from them instead!)

At REI, I can hardly keep up with my coworkers. There's Jeff, who's climbed Rainier and doesn't run much but woke up last Sunday and decided spur of the moment to go run 26.2 miles...and Tom, who's celebrating his forties with a skateboard and barefoot trail running and 200km bike rides and absolutely kicking my butt in the woods...and Ryan, who did a full Ironman (2.4 mile swim, 112-mile bike ride, 26.2-mile run) just out of college...and Michael, who's at Cyclo-cross Nationals in Oregon this weekend...and Suzi, who went to Boston to row at the Head of the Charles a few weeks ago...and Chris, who hunts with a bow and arrow and built his own kayak and sewed himself a pair of moccasins out of a deer he killed. There is serious peer pressure to ride a bike (or walk) to work, and everybody seems to pack themselves a healthy lunch each day. No fatty fast food for any of us; we all just sit down with our tupperware of quinoa or fresh salads - and it's awesome. It's just great, positive energy to be around.

Today, I went for a 9-mile run in West Seattle with Kate and Jenica. It's cold here, cold enough to make this fountain freeze over:


...but we bundled up, and had a blast traversing trails in Lincoln Park (which I wrote some about in July) and then running through quaint little beach-town neighborhoods to get to Alki Beach. Imagine the Florida Keys, except in 32-degree weather, and surrounded by mountains, and you get the idea. Cute beachside cottages, little palm trees, stretches of public beach, crab shacks and beach bars everywhere...plus the joys of mountainous, densely-forested trails!



Apparently, working out in threes is awesome. This was the second time this week, the first being an incredible three-hour forest workout with the afore-mentioned Chris and Tom, modeling our afternoon after the MovNat philosophy - training your body through natural movements like running, jumping, climbing, carrying, balancing, swimming, etc. We ran trails (the two of them "barefoot" in Vibram Fivefingers), vaulted over logs, crawled across fallen trees on all fours, leapt over creek beds, scrambled up off-trail hillsides, picked up logs and carried them around on our shoulders, climbed into trees, jumped off of them, jumped up and down staircases, balanced on rails, slacklined, and basically, just played in the woods. It was the most invigorating and fun workout my body's ever had, and four days later, my muscles are still feeling the burn...in a good way :) Here's what it looked like:

    

In conclusion? These people make me feel alive. It's not all working out; we have egg nog parties and hideous holiday outfit parties and Rockabilly-themed bowling parties. We have hot cocoa dates. We hit the local German pub with two dozen of us and pass around a giant glass boot of beer. We go out for open mic nights and concerts.


But getting outside is the biggest part of it. The quote "You are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with" has been of serious inspiration to me these past few years, and with that in mind, I feel lucky to be where I am.