Seattle

I took a bus trip from Baltimore to Seattle/Portland, it was amazing! I have been wanting to do thisWisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, and Idaho. This was also my first time in Washing and Oregon. I stepped foot in 11 states.














During the trip I met a bunch of crazy bus people, I lived off a diet of candy bars, chips, water, and tea. I'm vegetarian, which doesn't give me much options when being on the road especially in a place like North Dakota where all they have is meat. During a stop in Wisconsin I got off the bus in the middle of the night and searched for a place other than the McDonalds that the driver stopped in front of, I had no luck! Ever worse... IT WAS FREEZING. I was only in shorts and a t-shirt. I ran back onto the bus and shivered to the next state. It was kinda cool, literally.


After 3 days of living on the bus I made it to Seattle. I was so happy to finally make it! I couldn't believe I did it. I walked to the hostel, got greeted by the manager and got my free stay there, which is one of the fantastic benefits of working for HI. I got to my room and received a message from one of my newest friends Rob, his family are the founders of Hoehn's Bakery. Rob told me he felt bad I took a 3 day ride across country and sympathized how exhausting that must of been, so he offered to buy my plane ticket back to Baltimore for Tuesday morning. I was originally suppose to leave Seattle Tuesday morning and arrive in Baltimore via Greyhound Thursday evening, however I asked to extend my trip and take a 2 night stay in Portland Tuesday and Wednesday night and fly out Thursday morning out of Portland and arrive Thursday evening in Baltimore which is exactly what happened.

I walked to the bus stop immediately and used a $25 Greyhound Voucher (I won through a Facebook contest in December) to pay for my ticket. I then made my way back to the hostel.

The hostel was in the heart of China Town. I was given the private dorm. I asked the staff where I could go that was reasonably close and delicious they told me Tropic's which was a great, decently priced restaurant. I got Pad Thai, ate it, than passed out for the night I was exhausted from my long bus journey.

The next day I did all the touristy stuff like explore Pike Place Market, Pioneer Square, and visited the first ever Starbucks. I went to a bar around noon to watch the O's take on the Seattle Mariners in Baltimore. It was cool wearing a bright orange shirt while the Orioles beat Seattle while I'm downing 3 drafts yelling at the tv out of excitement of their lead. I then found this amazing place called Waterfall Garden which is a beautiful waterfall right in the middle of the city owned my a UPS in honor of their 100 years of being open since they started in Seattle, who knew? Who cared. It was just cool seeing a waterfall. I then walked around China Town some and found this great place Danny Woo Park which was like a big maze of steps and trees and plants. I really enjoyed it there and it had a wonderful view of the city. I chugged a Thai Ice Tea while, walked around the stadiums and called it a night.

After all the touristy stuff had been taken care of I bought a small book bag to hold my camcorder in and made my way to Northwest Folk Life which was a cool music festival going on that was free! It had many stages, tons of art, and tons of street performers. It was right by The Space Needle which was cool to spend a day around. I really enjoyed the festival. There was actually a skatepark there too where I watched people skate than I challenged one of the skaters in skate and beat him. It was a real accomplishment being I haven't skated regularly in the last 5 years, I also was wearing my really beat (boating shoes) Sperry's. It was tight. The park was amazing. I went to a delicious Vietnamese vegan restaurant. I got pizza and $2 drafts at Mario's. I than made it back to the hostel to meet to Australians and head out to Capitol Hill, which is probably the coolest part of Seattle. I went to this amazing bar called Unicorn. It was super massive, painted many different colors, and had arcade games inside. We had a few beers there, then we made our way to Cha Cha's which was a super fantastic Mexican themed bar. They had luchador videos playing in the basement, on a huge projector. It was so sweet. I then was pretty trashed, walked to a food truck and stuffed my face with Yukon fries. It was an awesome night.


Waking up from a great night I decided to walk down to the pier, and catch the ferry that takes you on a 35 minute ride to Bain bridge Island, It was an $8 ride which is nothing for that type of experience on being on the water for that long there and back. I did a lot of filming. It was a cool island. I explored the shops, and went to Emmy's Vege House. It was so damn good. The vegetarian/vegan food in Seattle is amazing! I got back late, I was exhausted and called it a night.

Sunday I went to Seattle Art Museum, I got in for free using my old museum ID. It saved me $20 bucks which is a nice perk of being a (previous) employee at a museum. The museum was great. It had a lot of different types of art. I think my favorite was the exact same model of a certain car was hanging from the ceiling in rows. It was very cool. I had lunch at Chu Minh Tofu & Veggie Deli, where I had a spicey tofu sandwich. I walked back over to Folklife Festival, enjoyed some more music, skated again. Ended my weekend.

During my last 2 days I walked around Olympic Sculpture Garden. That was a wonderful park to visit. I visited Capitol Hill again, got some clothes at Out Of The Closet. I went out for a drinks with an employee at HI-Seattle to this place that had functioning pinball machines as tables to sit at. It was called Shorty's. It was so dope. It was a nice way to leave Seattle.

The next morning I woke up ready for PORTLAND

I caught the bus there, and made it to the beautiful city. I walked 15 minutes to the hostel, was introduced to my room that I shared with other travelers. I wanted this so I could stand a better chance of hanging out with more travelers. I text a friend who recently moved there walked over to the area her, her dog, and her "new" green mystery machine looking fan was. I hung out with them, walked across a cool bridge, made it back to the city and had a donut at Voodoo Donuts. I first had to pull out cash in the ATM next store. This is where I first discovered The Kit Kat Club. A couple walked to the door and was greeted by a bouncer the couple asked

Couple - is there a fee to get in?
Bouncer - $1
Couple - Is this a cool bar?
Bouncer - It's cool if you liked naked women dancing from poles, comedians, and late night talk shows.

The couple walked in. I was impressed. I ate my donut and walked back to the hostel. This is where I met a woman from England in the kitchen of the hostel as I was charging my phone. We started talking, then went out for drinks. We tried going to Barcade but they wouldn't accept her Passport as form of ID so I mentioned The Kit Kat Club. We went. It was exactly what the bouncer said it was. It was amazing.

There were strippers doing contests, while it was all hosted by a late night talk show host. The show was called Who's The Ross. It was awesome. They interviewed the strippers and comedians and had a live musician named Trimp. I was SO DAMN IMPRESSED by this guys music. He was so legit the Trimp(iest). He distorted his microphone in multiple tones while he was singing/rapping, and had the talk show's house band performing behind him. It was so, so good, Imagine a guy in a black suit, black sunglasses, orange beard, and a blonde wig on, with a squeaky microphone that he was rapping (I think) in. It was dope. Anyway my new hostel friend and I had a few drinks and called it a night, we departed and I crashed in my dorm,

GREAT STORY TIME!

The next day I woke up to go on a hostel guided hike in Washington Park. That was fantastic! We hiked about 6 miles and made our way back to the hostel. I then got ready for a happy hour pub crawl also hosted by the hostel. I got a $1 craft beer at the first bar, this is where myself and all the travelers started getting to know each other. One girl was from Federal Hill, Baltimore, MD... We didn't get along. Other people were from AZ, PA, MI, New Zealand, etc. It was very cool. We then made out way to another bar and I started feeling buzzed the girl asked me tell me something interesting about you? I told her I won The Price Is Right, the guy from Arizona said No way! I won The Price Is Right too. We became best friends, everyone was amazed by our stories on the show. His name is Vince he won in 2007 during the Bob Barker era. The bartender doesn't charge me. We go to Blue Moon Tavern. I get the purple haze beer recommended by Vince. It was delicious. The tour guide decided to call it an early night. He recommended us to go to Dark Horse which is what we did. The crew watched some of the basketball game semi-finals there. We got 2 beers there each.

Vince and I started leading the group from there. We walked to Rogue Brewery. We were all wasted at this point I ordered a batch of fries. This is my second order of fries (I forgot to mention during the 2 days I was there, all I ate was a donut, and 2 orders of french fries). I was stuffing my face. The guy from Michigan was telling us it was his 22nd birthday and he was hammered, he kept on buying drink after drink. It was pretty cool to watch. Vince and I were telling cool travel stories. We then walked over to 10 Barrel Brewing. We all got another beer. The waitress new we were so drunk she didn't even give us our check. She just asked us all for $5 gave us beer, then we left. It was great,

The group was ready to do something different, so I walked us to The Kit Kat Club, since I had so much fun the night before. We got in, and I pulled out my phone to Snapchat I picture of the group. A stripper walked up and grabbed my phone out of my hand and ran off with it. I chased her to the door and she gave it to the bouncer. The bouncer deleted all my Snaps and some of my photos my phone. That weren't even related to the place at all. It was weird. I got kicked out. I bought a donut next store. It was delicious. I passed out back at the hostel. The next day I got up and saw a lot of the people I saw out the night before and they all thanked me for an amazing time, and felt bad I got kicked out, but informed me 2 other guys part of the group got kicked out too for being too drunk (one being the birthday boy), so I didn't feel so bad anymore.

I packed my things and took the train to the plane and flew back home on an expense free ride. I had a layover in Chicago and then made it back home to call it a night. It was an incredible trip. I am so proud I did it. I can't wait to step foot in the 7 other states and make my goal to stepping foot in all 50 states by the age 30.

Thank you for reading!