No Power in the 'Verse can stop my Whim
Jul. 2nd, 2005 10:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
butterflydreamingBy 11:30 on Friday morning, I had eaten breakfast, showered, been to the bank, paid several bills, and *finally* taken care of some errands that had been long pending. I had a long weekend ahead of me because of the holiday (I get paid holidays now, hurrah) and nothing between kyudo in the evening and the Tanabata (also called Hoshi Matsuri) festival on Monday morning.
Lying on the (clean) carpet while L wandered through the stretches that I also was supposed to be doing, I realized a whisper of a feeling rising inside me like a curl of incense smoke. I wanted to go somewhere. I had finances (I had balanced my checkbook and gone to the bank, remember), opportunity, company (L had Saturday off also), and motivation. A few minutes of calculation assured me that I also had means. You know why? Because beyond the metro bus system and the state ferries, I have Flexcar!
"What do you think?" I asked my roommate and longtime fellow partner in spontaneous out-of-town trips. "Wanna go?"
For the last four or five summers, L & I have gone out to Sequim for the Lavender Festival (the best smelling street faire EVER) in July. Her birthday is at the end of July, and we usually combine the street faire & farm tour with a camping trip. We've done everything from a week-long, all-the-way-to-Forks run around to a rushed day trip; we've slept in tents, B&Bs, and motels. I can't easily explain why I feel the annual call to go back.
This year, there is a little too much going on during the weekend of the 16th and 17th. Bon Odori Festival, the West Seattle Street Faire, friends visiting (yay![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wendybarron and dctemo13!), and more. So going out to the Olympic Penninsula this weekend seemed like a good, if sudden, idea. Or maybe I should say, Whim. And it was astonishingly easy to get there. We threw our clothes, CDs, and overnight supplies together and caught a bus down to Colman Dock, just in time to walk onto the Bainbridge-bound ferry. Before we had left home, we'd set up the cats with dinner & water, notified our kyudo group that we were skipping, called family, and reserved the Flexcar on Bainbridge Island. Once on the other side of the water, I slid into the driver's seat of a comfortable Honda sedan and started the familiar drive past Poulsbo, over the Hood Canal Bridge, and up the 101.
The crown of Friday night was either my find at Olympic Stained Glass (I have something to show you,shellyinseattle!) or the excellent, as always, dinner at the Indian Oven, both in Port Angeles. We had vegetable pakora (a deep fried cluster of assorted vegetables and curry in a "spiced grain flour" batter) AND samosas (more deep fried, yum), delicious rice, bartha (eggplant and other good stuff baked in the tandoori oven), aloo vindaloo (potatoes in tomatoey vindaloo sauce), and aloo parantha, which is a really amazing, buttery bread-thing thinly stuffed with spiced potatoes and peas. (Sooo gooood.) All vegetarian, and, as you might guess, too much food for two girls. (We knew that we had a refrigerator in our room at the Ramada.) Someday we'll have a bigger group, and someday I'll even order the naan bread with the coconut, nuts, and raisins.
Indian food makes a splendid breakfast.
Saturday was our day to visit our two favorite lavender farms: Lost Mountain and Purple Haze. If you wonder how much variety there can be in lavender, then you need to go visit -- at least a website. We stocked up at Lost Mountain (can't tell you what cuz they're presents) but had something very specific in mind from Purple Haze: ice cream.
Oh, yes.
Purple Haze makes and sells their own ice creams. In the past they have offered lavender lemon sorbet and lavender cheesecake ice cream, but today the selections were lavender lemon custard, lavender white chocolate, lavender mint, and lavender flower (either vanilla or a sweet-cream base with, well, lavender flowers). The ice cream is served from a cute little stand, a building separate from the main store. Both farms are beautiful, and the scent of the fields magnificent. And the ice cream? It is impossible for me to express to you how good it tasted. It was absolutely sensual. I could coat my lips with a generous amount of the vanilla-lavender lip balm that Lost Mountain makes, and *try*, but I think I'd still miss the mark.
We got our dinner at Tarcicio's, a very neighborhoodly pizza-and-pasta restaurant that we both love, and even shopped a bit in Bainbridge (you can't keep L out of the yarn stores) (or me out of the candle stores) before just barely making it onto the ferry. We had to run!
The cats don't seem to hate us or be plotting revenge, so I think all is well.
Lying on the (clean) carpet while L wandered through the stretches that I also was supposed to be doing, I realized a whisper of a feeling rising inside me like a curl of incense smoke. I wanted to go somewhere. I had finances (I had balanced my checkbook and gone to the bank, remember), opportunity, company (L had Saturday off also), and motivation. A few minutes of calculation assured me that I also had means. You know why? Because beyond the metro bus system and the state ferries, I have Flexcar!
"What do you think?" I asked my roommate and longtime fellow partner in spontaneous out-of-town trips. "Wanna go?"
For the last four or five summers, L & I have gone out to Sequim for the Lavender Festival (the best smelling street faire EVER) in July. Her birthday is at the end of July, and we usually combine the street faire & farm tour with a camping trip. We've done everything from a week-long, all-the-way-to-Forks run around to a rushed day trip; we've slept in tents, B&Bs, and motels. I can't easily explain why I feel the annual call to go back.
This year, there is a little too much going on during the weekend of the 16th and 17th. Bon Odori Festival, the West Seattle Street Faire, friends visiting (yay
wendybarron and dctemo13!), and more. So going out to the Olympic Penninsula this weekend seemed like a good, if sudden, idea. Or maybe I should say, Whim. And it was astonishingly easy to get there. We threw our clothes, CDs, and overnight supplies together and caught a bus down to Colman Dock, just in time to walk onto the Bainbridge-bound ferry. Before we had left home, we'd set up the cats with dinner & water, notified our kyudo group that we were skipping, called family, and reserved the Flexcar on Bainbridge Island. Once on the other side of the water, I slid into the driver's seat of a comfortable Honda sedan and started the familiar drive past Poulsbo, over the Hood Canal Bridge, and up the 101.The crown of Friday night was either my find at Olympic Stained Glass (I have something to show you,
shellyinseattle!) or the excellent, as always, dinner at the Indian Oven, both in Port Angeles. We had vegetable pakora (a deep fried cluster of assorted vegetables and curry in a "spiced grain flour" batter) AND samosas (more deep fried, yum), delicious rice, bartha (eggplant and other good stuff baked in the tandoori oven), aloo vindaloo (potatoes in tomatoey vindaloo sauce), and aloo parantha, which is a really amazing, buttery bread-thing thinly stuffed with spiced potatoes and peas. (Sooo gooood.) All vegetarian, and, as you might guess, too much food for two girls. (We knew that we had a refrigerator in our room at the Ramada.) Someday we'll have a bigger group, and someday I'll even order the naan bread with the coconut, nuts, and raisins.Indian food makes a splendid breakfast.
Saturday was our day to visit our two favorite lavender farms: Lost Mountain and Purple Haze. If you wonder how much variety there can be in lavender, then you need to go visit -- at least a website. We stocked up at Lost Mountain (can't tell you what cuz they're presents) but had something very specific in mind from Purple Haze: ice cream.
Oh, yes.
Purple Haze makes and sells their own ice creams. In the past they have offered lavender lemon sorbet and lavender cheesecake ice cream, but today the selections were lavender lemon custard, lavender white chocolate, lavender mint, and lavender flower (either vanilla or a sweet-cream base with, well, lavender flowers). The ice cream is served from a cute little stand, a building separate from the main store. Both farms are beautiful, and the scent of the fields magnificent. And the ice cream? It is impossible for me to express to you how good it tasted. It was absolutely sensual. I could coat my lips with a generous amount of the vanilla-lavender lip balm that Lost Mountain makes, and *try*, but I think I'd still miss the mark.
We got our dinner at Tarcicio's, a very neighborhoodly pizza-and-pasta restaurant that we both love, and even shopped a bit in Bainbridge (you can't keep L out of the yarn stores) (or me out of the candle stores) before just barely making it onto the ferry. We had to run!
The cats don't seem to hate us or be plotting revenge, so I think all is well.
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no subject
Date: 2005-07-03 05:17 am (UTC)Glad you had a good time :D
no subject
Date: 2005-07-03 05:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-03 05:39 am (UTC)hmn! will have to at some point compare their bharta with the marvellous concoction i inhale regularly here at Jaipur palace. was the restaurant entirely veg, or was that just your selection of dishes?
no subject
Date: 2005-07-03 04:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-03 06:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-04 06:16 am (UTC)