A Lucky Trip to Tulalip

Lydia doesn't really like casinos for likely several reasons, one because they are smokey and she is very sensitive to smells. She tolerates them on occasion which is nice because I think they are great. 

Besides being full of amusements, the casinos around here are all Indian reservation casinos so I get a little Native American culture along with my diversions. Quil Ceda Creek Casino in Tulalip, Washington is a good example.

The art of the local tribes is often very nautically themed, with lots of fish and whales and so forth. It's pretty cool I think.

I liked the slot machines with cool themes. We ended up winning a small jackpot on the Walking Dead machine.

Rich!

Agree.

Woodinville Wine Country

Woodinville, Washington is full of wineries. Now my understanding is that Washington wine country is all on the east side of the Mountains, where it's sunnier and drier. Here on the gloomy rainy side, we get to drink the wine but not watch it grow. Sacrifices need to be made I guess. I'll still drink it!

What name rolls off the tongue better than Castillo de Feliciana Vineyard & Winery Woodinville Tasting Room? None, that's what.

We told our server how new we were to the area and she was so excited about giving us recommendations that she wrote out a whole list of places that we should check out. I was surprised at how nice she was about it, even for a person expecting a tip.

Gas is more expensive here than in Missouri, so we try to lessen our costs by almost exclusively buying gas from Costco. I never used to be that gas price chasing crazy person, but I think it's like 50 cents cheaper than everywhere else. It's also very close to where we live so it works out.

We have a nice little patio thing where Lydia can sit outside, read, and collect more bug bites to tell me about later on.

Lake Washington is a real looker, tell you what.

Wine Time in Kirkland

Today we claimed the festivities that we earned volunteering at the Kirkland Uncorked wine festival yesterday.

Lydia so fancy now she eats yogurt out of glass jars. Must be nice.

I think trading card shoplifting got so bad that they had to start selling them in vending machines.

There are a lot of huckleberry flavored things in these parts. Never have met a fresh one, however.

I introduced Lydia to the magic of taiyaki they sell frozen at Costco.

We wined and wined.

Our First Washington Festival

We joined the volunteer crew at Kirkland Uncorked, a wine festival near the lake and walkable from the apartment.

They were very anal about the rules. You weren't allowed to drink anything at any time. Also in St. Louis usually these things are sort of all you can drink once you pay the cover charge. Here there was a cover charge plus a token system. Volunteering got us in tomorrow plus some drink tickets.

We were working the beer tent. I kept laughing because although people were buying beer at a wine festival they still wanted to feel pretentious, so they kept ordering friggin asswater Stella Artois that we served in the ridiculous chalices. A whole lot of these stupid glasses ended up in the trash.

We must have seemed pretty untrustworthy because we weren't allowed to handle any actual commerce, we just poured beers.

We got free t-shirts too! Winning.

Horsey Hiking then the Mall

Today we did a little hike at the lovely Bridle Trails State Park near our apartment.

"Bridle Trails State Park is a day-use park that lies to the northeast edge of the Seattle metropolitan area. The park is a lowland forest, typical of the vegetation which once covered Puget Sound. The woods abound in Douglas fir and western hemlock, with some western red cedar, big-leaf maple and alder mixed in. Horseback riding and horse shows are the two activities most common in the park. Horse trails double as hiking trails, though horses have the right of way."

I'm obsessed with this nurse tree phenomenon.

The trails were very nice, but there was some horse poop that needed to be avoided.

Bellevue Square Mall is so nice it's stupid. For one thing they have a freaking Royce' shop full of fancy Japanese chocolate. I used to only be able to get this magical product in Japan or at a select couple of airports.

They even had a goddamn Australian meat pie store in here! I'm never leaving this place.

There is a serious amount of boba tea available and everyone takes it seriously. Many of the places selling it here have long lines.

Twin Peaks Sightseeing

We'd finally been in the Seattle area for two days in a row and now that everything was unpacked we were able to check out our surroundings a bit. The nearby towns of Snoqualmie, North Bend and Fall City are the primary filming locations for cult classic Twin Peaks' exterior footage.

It was strange being over here. This sort of environment with this sort of vibe is literally something out of a tv show or movie, and nothing like a place I ever dreamed of living. So not only were the places cool on their own but I feel like I had some small amount of ownership or something now that I lived nearby. I wasn't just a tourist here anymore.

Our first stop was Twede's Cafe.

In Twin Peaks it was known as the Double R Diner.

The place was packed and even had a bit of a wait. When I saw the in-FBI-costume tour guide standing out front I realized a lot of these people were here on a Twin Peaks tour. Not bad for a show that premiered in 1990.

The menu was pretty classic diner fare.

There was a ton of Twin Peaks memorabilia on the walls.

Biscuits and gravy is a kind of trash food that I will never get tired of eating.

I had to get a piece of pie before we left, not because I was still hungry but because according to FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, "This must be where pies go when they die."

We quickly went on a hike of Mount Si before I died of pie poisoning.

The Salish Lodge & Spa near Snoqualmie Falls plays the show's Great Northern Hotel's exterior shots. There's another hotel in the area where they shot some of the interiors and I'm going to need to stay there!

The hotel was clearly in on the fun.

There was a scene where I think this Ronette Pulaski escaped a rape or something and then was like creepily half dead walking across this bridge. I looked way better on the bridge, not gonna lie.

I think these might be the twin peaks in question.

I think in the show the Roadhouse was kind of a rough bar but in reality it was a nice sort of restaurant and inn. We stopped for dinner.

Amazon Go is kind of wild. You sign up once then afterwards you can beep yourself in at an automatic gate, pick up whatever groceries you want, then just walk out with. The gillions of cameras everywhere know what you took and automatically charge you. The future is now!

I single handedly saved Central America with my recent trip to Honduras.