I was worried about finding a camping space because of the Memorial Day weekend. Sure enough, the most promising candidate was full. Before we set up shop on the fringe of an overflow parking lot, Gabe made friends with a family of campers and asked if we could add our tent to their site. They agreed with a bit of hesitance but after a few minutes of conversation they suprisingly decided we were normal enough. Then Gabe talked to them for like two hours. There are two kinds of people in this world, and without Gabe's kind, I would suffer in bad camping sites. I also saw wolves for the first time, and they were super close.
We rolled into Seattle Saturday morning. Gabe dropped me off in a Starbucks downtown, and man was this a giant Starbucks. I went to the Pikes Place market, and went book shopping, and saw the ferris wheel and wandered around the Art Museum, but somehow I never left the Starbucks (I can only assume because of the number of visible logos at any moment). The bonus is that there's always free wifi in downtown Seattle. Gabe met some friends for martial arts during the day and we connected for dinner and stayed in Mike's living room. Thanks, Mike.
Today (Sunday) we hit the zoo on the recommendation of one of my coworkers, and what a wonderful zoo it was. The animals were active because it was cool and drizzly, and their enclosures all looked really natural and spacious. We spent several hours and saw a couple different kinds of bears, penguins, lots of primates, komodo dragons, a snow leopard, and all kinds of birds of prey and not-prey. By the way, I lied about the wolves earlier. They were in the zoo.
Tonight we're staying on the couch of Daniel and Kate (thanks, Daniel and Kate) with the intent of an early morning and getting halfway to Blane's in Rifle, CO. I can't wait to see my friend and his honey operation again and have him show us some cool hiking spots (he's mentioned Arches National Park and some places in eastern Colorado).
