Roadtrip to Seattle
Hi! We're Josh and Paulo. We recently moved to Seattle after five years together in Washington, D.C., and we started this blog to share our outdoor adventures, travel experiences we've loved, places we're discovering in Seattle, ways we make our home happy, and our style. We think this will be part journal, part wish list, part lessons learned.
Our biggest adventure recently was our road trip to Seattle. We stopped for lunch at the famous Primanti Brothers in the Strip District of my former hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where as many people know, they put french fries directly in your sandwich. We never went there as a kid because we mostly ate Filipino food, but we did go up to Mount Washington a lot to see this view of the city.
View of Pittsburgh, PA, from Mount Washington. If you are ever in town, take the incline trolley up from the waterfront.
After lunch, we kept driving to see some old friends of Josh's from grad school in Chicago. We walked into a really fun whiskey tasting party when we arrived, and in the morning, our friends John and Terri hosted a very generous brunch for us with our friends Sandy, Adrian, and Justin. Then we hit the road to Kansas City, Missouri, to see my friend Brad and Ben. They have the cutest craftsman (below) and were such lovely hosts. They set us up in their newly remodeled guest suite above the garage and made us a delicious dinner with tiny guilt-free Ben and Jerry's mini cups. The guilt free part comes when you get to the bottom and have to stop and you usually do that when it's four times the size. As we were making our way to the guest suite, Brad and Ben insisted that we go for a ride in their new Tesla, so we took to the empty streets. It accelerated so fast that I still feel like I left my stomach back there.
Brad and Ben's adorable craftsman in Kansas City
From Kansas City, we drove what seemed like a very long stretch of flyover country to Denver to see my old friend Sean. Sean took us to the RiNo district (River North Arts District) in Denver for what might be the best Chinese food I've ever had at Hop Alley. Like us, Sean is starting to explore the outdoors in his new(ish) home and has some fun backpacking trips planned around Colorado.
Our dinner at Hop Alley: bone marrow fried rice, fried chicken with dried chilis, duck rolls, and summer sashimi
From Denver, we visited Josh's mom and stepdad in his hometown of Missoula. We got stuck there for a few days because I got the flu, but what better place to get sick than at home with family? It also gave Josh a few days to spend with his mom and poke his head into some of his favorite haunts like Catalyst and Butterfly Herbs, which is this insanely stocked tea shop. I really underestimated Missoula before our trips. It's a very charming, liberal, university town, with cute retail stores like Noteworthy Paper & Press, frequent cultural activities like the traveling Shakespeare in the Park, and a great farmer's market with a large population of Hmong farmers.
After nearly two weeks on the road, we landed in Seattle on a beautiful day. We stayed with Josh's brother for a little while and then found a great apartment right above Gasworks Park (below).
The view from Gasworks Park in Seattle the day we arrived
The lobby of our new apartment building
We're excited for our new adventures in Seattle and have spent lots of time outdoors and in the city. Look forward to posts in the mountains, at cute coffee shops, and in our 500 square foot apartment.
