Edmonds, WA

I flew the coop.

I managed to get ridiculous cheap ticket on Frontier Airlines and decided to take a quick trip up to Seattle, my hometown. Kenn was teasing me about starting up a travel agency because I'll book a flight to Seattle in December. Well, Kenn, It's 50 degrees here, with mostly sunny skies and no snow in sight, except on the volcanoes. So, How's the snow? Hmmm?

I drove north from Seattle to one of my favorite little towns, Edmonds, WA, Rick Steve's hometown. Edmonds is a ferry jump to the "other side" of Puget Sound and the Olympic Peninsula beyond. It's my destination tomorrow morning, and I have to check the online ferry schedule to see which boat I can catch. I'm taking my rented Pontiac G6 and heading out to Kingston, Point no Point, Port Angeles, and the Point Dungeness Lighthouse reserve. I have some people to stop and say hi to on the way, but I plan to spend most of the day out there.

Tonight I went to Claire's Restaurant, which one of the best restaurants I've ever visited. The food is awesome, they still serve breakfast at 8 pm, and the waitresses are the nicest you've ever met. I highly recommend it if you're ever in this neck of the woods.

Tonight the town is having its annual "First Dibs" night in which all the stores in the downtown area stay open until 9 pm and there's a ton of people out walking around in the "cold" listening to street madrigals sing Christmas carols under the twinkling white lights that people here seem so fond of. I went into Rick Steve's Travel Store and looked around around, and bought a set of luggage tags. Next door to his shop there's an old northwest style church (wooden, short, white) that was hosting a choir singing Christmas carols. The Candy Cane shop is around the corner and has a wild selection of candy displayed in white stacked cubbies and the owner will offer you a sample of chocolates wrapped as tiny Christmas presents. One store over is the Gardener's Shop and I bought a large brightly painted sign that says, "Trust Your Crazy Ideas" and the owners will ship purchased items for you, although they're a little worried about the odd size of the sign. It's going to hang in my living room, near the front door.

Edmonds looks the way towns did 40 years ago, with individual stores, and shop personnel that are friendly and glad to see you. Most stores have decorated bowls of water for the local dogs to drink. There weren't many dogs out tonight.

Oh no, the news says the temperature has dropped to 40 degrees.