I don't think I've mentioned this yet but I bought a new GPS for the journey. Her name is Siri. I would like to say that she has been an ever-faithful companion but she can be kind of an asshole at times. She's a little too structured for my tastes. Man does she get mad when I drive off the beaten path. She doesn't yell - no, that's not her style. She speaks like I'm a school boy and she's the exasperated teacher. Sure she'd like to see me grow into a mature, well adjusted driver. But sometimes I think she hates me just a little bit. Probably because I've told her to fuck off a several times in the past weeks.
The reason I bring Siri up is that I met up with my friend Matt in Seattle after Yellowstone. He flew out from CT at the last minute to meet up with me. We had no definitive plans. All we knew was that at some point at the end of the week he needed to fly home from Portland. During our Seattle-Portland jaunt I knick-named him Surly. "Why Surly?", you may ask. Let me start off by saying that Matt is truly a good guy. He's one of those rare individuals that you meet in your life that is truly a stand up human being. And he's a little surly.
Now Siri and Surly had several traits in common. For instance they were both constantly telling me where to go and how to get there. However, Surly seemed much more worried about my driving then Siri did. Perhaps because he had eyes. Suffice to say the oh shit handle of my Prius is now well used. Another similarity was that both were constantly interrupting the music selection in the car. Don't tell Siri this but Surly was a much better travel companion. And I only told Surly to fuck off once or twice.
We had a great time in Seattle. The Needle, EMP, Pike's market, good food, good drinks. I had the best salmon chowder at Vonn's. Do yourself a favor. Go there. Eat it. Thank me.
After Seattle we decided to take the long way to Portland - the 101 from Seattle around the peninsula, past Forks (!), past May Beach down to Astoria. Astoria is where the Goonies was filmed. We even went to Cannon Beach which had the famous beach featured in Goonies. Finally we ventured into Portland where we hung out with two of Matt's friends. Stay tuned for the Portland edition of my blogged entitled: The Drunken Angels (of Portland).
