Seattle/Bellingham/Glacier, WA: A Flannel Vancation

Katie and I began our voyage to Courtney Love's mother-state on Friday evening but we didn't make it to Seattle until after 1am on account of weather delays. Laura picked us up in Coco and whisked us north to Bellingham. It was great to be reunited with Laura who has been living in Washington for the winter ("FUCK YEAH!"). We parked Coco on the beach, cracked a few brews with Laura's hunk Gunther, and hit the hay before the sun rose over the San Juan islands in the distance.

The next morning we stuffed ourselves with a delicious brunch at the Little Cheerful Cafe and spend the day lit hours poking around for treasures in thrift and junk shops. The state of Washington is a totally unearthed reserve of under priced riches! I made off with a sequined cashmere sweater and Laura and Shrimp bought a fringed dress+jacket, unicorn, mink hat, wood bowl, tea set, and other items between them. After a long day of hunting we grabbed some famous burritos at Casa Que Pasa. Then we went and dicked around Gunther's art studio while he tinkered with the biodeisel hookup in his van. It was taking forever so the three of us made our way north for the evenings festivities.

We grabbed some booze at the Nooksack Reservation (by "we" I mean Shrimp - I had to wait in the van since I lost my driver's licence at SFO!!!!) and stopped by a party in a part of the state that is not in a town but for postal purposes is located in Deming. The party was in the show house of this beautiful sustainable pre-fab home and was packed with snowboarders. The brand new hard wood floors provided the perfect surface for sliding around in sock feet and determining if we were goofy (Shrimp) or regular (unfortunately....moi). After some time at the party we drove up to Glacier, the tiny mountain town on the edge of Canada where Laura has been living/knowing everyone, and caught the ruckus Sugar, Sugar, Sugar show at Baker's (the only bar in town). When the bar closed linked Coco to Laura's friend Donkey's van in the parking lot and had a giant van party with the SSS rockers plus a zillion other people. Once we ran out of booze, Laura, somewhat recklessly, drove eight of us in the van over to her friend Jason's house and crashed Coco into a snowbank on the side of the driveway. Unable to budge the van, we just cranked the stereo and had a big dance party in the street. We were soon joined by other carloads of people heading to Jason's. The spontaneous several-dozen dancer boogie was unfazed by three visits by local police. We eventually brought the party inside once the reality that it was around zero degree hit us. Laura fell on Jason's wood burning stove at one point and the rest is history. Ouch.

Haggard, we awoke the next morning in various states of disarray from crashing on floor/couch/futon of our host's cabin and made oatmeal before hitting the slopes! Mt. Baker is a beautiful mountain and Laura is an excellent snowboard instructor. I hadn't snowboarded since Tahoe '97 and it was the first time for Katie "raised in the jungle" Murphy so you might imagine the quality of our performances. Nonetheless, we gave it our best. After putting in a solid afternoon of "shredding" we heading back to Bellingham for a feast them some quality Coco time for the rest of the night. Around 3:30am we drove back to Seattle in time for Laura to drop us off at the airport where we took a crack of dawn flight to make it home in time for work on Monday.



Coco reunion


Laura's van and Gunther's van = van love


Lipstick brunch; A GOAT IN A TRUCK IN DOWNTOWN BELLINGHAM


vintage wares


San Juan Islands in the distance


We spent hours here. HOURS.


Van party post-Sugar Sugar Sugar show






Burn


A real life glacier!


@ Mt. Baker