I’m a big proponent for weekends to be time to get out and experience places you love and places you want to see. So when there's an opportunity to go somewhere new, I try to hop on it as quickly as I can. A couple weeks ago, a friend of mine suggested that I come to Seattle to visit him to ski. I thought about it for a little while, thinking it's kind of crazy to do that for just a quick trip. It only took a few minutes really thinking about it to convince myself to pull the trigger. I'm glad I was easily convinced.
On Friday I left from Sacramento and flew into Seattle. It only took a few hours before I was picked up from the airport and looking at the lights coming off the Space Needle, Amazon buildings, and the rest of the bustling lights of a city nightscape. My friend from high school, Michael, had picked me up and gave me a quick tour as we headed to his apartment. We were straight to bed and ready to brace the 5:30 am alarm to head to the snow the next morning.
Michael makes fun of me for how excited I was about the sunrise driving up to the mountains that morning. I couldn't help it, I was a kid in a candy store. The snow capped mountains climbed straight up into the sky and were glowing with cotton candy pinks, burning reds and yellows, and highlighted with a light blue of the sky. I probably took too many pictures through the windshield, but like I said, I couldn't help it.
We spent the day skiing at Stevens pass, a relatively small mountain compared to Rainier or Baker, but a great mountain, at the least. All of the mountains through the area seemed to almost stand straight up, like a flat wall of rock and snow. Standing on the ridge looking straight down to the bottom, you could already feel your legs start to burn before you even dropped in. We ran laps around the park all day long, and left in time to beat most of the traffic back to Seattle.
The drive back was pretty similar to the drive up, Michael was making fun of me the entire drive through the mountains. He was generous enough to pull off and let me grab some pictures. That night we enjoyed a well deserved burger and beer and were in bed early to get enough rest for me to catch my 9 am flight the next morning. 24 hours in Washington, quick, but well worth it.
