Bigger than Portland. Colder than Portland. 3ish hours to both Portland and Vancouver, BC. Lots of islands and stuff around to visit. Mountains, too, I guess. If you're into it. Ed O.
Kinky. But like Vegas, what you choose to do in SF stays in SF (along with your balls apparently). barfo
Plus another hour to go the 3 miles from your home to the freeway. Probably the worst traffic design of any city in the US. I love to visit Seattle for a day or 2, but the locals don't seem very friendly or outgoing compared to anywhere else I've been. Sales tax, absurd fees on just about everything like car registrations, building permits... Decent music scene. It's like a smaller, staider version of the Portland music scene. SEAFOOD! If you have a seagoing boat or like diving there's no limit to the opportunities. I spent a week there alone for some training back in the nineties and drove all over each evening checking out the neighborhoods and suburbs. Found none I'd want to live in. Noisy, dirty, busy, noisy. Did I mention it's noisy?
The Northwest is different from the rest of the country. There are no ghettos, just integrated shiny tamed black people who don't hate white people, just put up with them. If you drive across the state or the city, take precautions for the weather killing you, not the people, as you would in California. The enemy who will do you in isn't mean macho people, it's rough weather. In downtown San Francisco I always hole up in a cafe for an hour while the demonstration passes outside. In Seattle you never see any demonstrations. In SF the revolution is being fought; in Seattle it's already been won. Compared to California, Northwesterners are very polite, because the weather makes us stay inside and get along with each other. The Northwest is green because of the rain. Trees make the areas between cities seem alive instead of dead and brown like drier areas of the country. California friends call my home a park, with numerous 100-foot evergreens in the yard on a lake. Every day I climb a tree, spot seals below, and dive 60 feet to play with them. When dusk calls I light the campfire and hang a small goat on the spit. The weather means you only have to mow the lawn 6 months a year, and you get weeks of free vacation when it snows. At night the stars put on a show for free, twinkling in the clear frigid air, cleansed by the brief midnight rains. I take another 60-foot dive but the tide has run out.
