Oh, Friday Harbor… What a magical place…

Layne has attended a biology conference in Friday Harbor for the past few years, and every year he has come back with tales of what a beautiful island it is, and how much I would love it. And so, this year, when his conference happened to fall just a few days after Emerald City Comic Con, we made plans to attend both events, back to back!!

After puttering around in Seattle for two days, we caught the ferry from Anacortes out to Friday Harbor. On the ferry trip alone, I saw dolphins, innumerable gulls and cormorants, and a smattering of eagles. And that was just the beginnings of the variety of wildlife I’d see on that trip!

But, first, there was science to be had. The first night, I went with Layne to listen to the keynote speaker talk about her research into human blastocysts. It was very interesting, and I managed to follow along pretty well with just my layman’s knowledge of developmental biology, but I quickly realized that things were going to get over my head in fairly short order.

Take the “Guess the Invertebrate”, for example. All of the squirmy, worm-like things in the tank looked pretty much the same to me. Some were bigger. Some had more legs. There was one big green one that looked vaguely cthuluoid. But I couldn’t have put a name to any one of them if my life had depended on it. Everyone else seemed to get into it, though!!

So, remember how I went on and on about the Pike Place Market?? Well, I might love the aquarium just a little bit more. Why? Cause they have animals, and I’m a sucker for animals.

(Actually, Pike Place market has it’s fair share of animals, too. Though, those are mostly dead and available for eating. Which may argue that Pike Place is the better place to hang out. But I digress..)

We spent out Monday in Seattle hanging out at the market and wandering by the seashore. And after seeing so many tasty, tasty fishes, I decided that it was time to go and see some of the live variety. Hugparty was kind enough to accompany us and put up with my squeeing over the corals. (Actually, she did some squeeing too, truth be told. Corals are pretty awesome.)

We were there nearly until closing time, and really should have come earlier and made an entire day of it. As it was, we could have killed a couple of hours just watching the river otters play in their enclosure, to say nothing of the very inquisitive fur seal who I got into a staring contest with. All in all, it was an awesome way to spend a day.

Also – OMG AUKS!!!!!!!

Ok, so a lot of you are probably wondering what’s up with the last panels. This comic is an homage to the “Two Cops” strips in Chainsawsuit, by Kris Staub. They never fail to crack me up.

This strip is also pretty much verbatim from the conversation Layne and I had this morning. He follows even more comics than I do, and we often quote things from these comics at each other. (Cause we’re dorks like that…) I even narrated the last panel with my best 80’s TV announcer voice.

But I kid you not – the guy who cut me off was driving a massive hemi truck with giant Harley Davidson decals pretty much everywhere he could find room for. I didn’t get a good look at his tires, as I was too busy trying to keep from slamming into his rear-end, but I imagine that they had color-changing LED lit spinning hubcaps on them as well. The whole effect grabbed you by the lapels and screamed “I AM A GIANT DOUCHEBAG” as loudly as it could into your face.

The funny part is, though it was an extended cab truck, the actual bed of the truck itself looked to be too small to even think of carrying a bike in. I wouldn’t be shocked in the slightest if he ever got his paint keyed by people who DO actually ride Harleys….

I’d hope to never encounter his ilk again, except that this is Edmonton, and assholes in trucks are pretty much par for the course on these roads. Ah well. At least we have a good music festival…

Oh, hostels…

First off, let me say that I wholeheartedly approve of the jar of free condoms. If people are going to be tempted to ‘collect some flags’, then they damned well better be safe about it, is all I’m sayin’.

Secondly, let me say that the Green Tortoise is one of the best hostels I’ve ever stayed at! Clean, exceptionally located, and with the most kick-ass space sheets adorning the bunks in the private rooms. (Seriously. This strip was basically just an excuse to draw the sweet space sheets. Sleeping in a bunk bed with space sheets is pretty much sheer unadulterated awesome.) There’s nothing quite like waking up in your cozy private hostel room, looking out over the first Starbucks and the Pike Place market, and then taking the quick walk up the street (past several amazing breakfast places, but I digress) to the convention center. (I only regret that I didn’t get up early enough to catch breakfast with Beckie and James, of Little Vampires, who we were sharing the room with!!)

But, I’ve stayed at quite a few hostels in my time, and the one thing that seems to hold true between them all is that if you spend any time in the common room, you’re gonna get hit on. Sometimes, this can be flattering and endearing, because there’s nothing quite like a cute accent. (And hostels are GREAT for neat accents!) But when I’ve just worked a con floor for ten hours then gone out to hit the bars with some folks and am now trying desperately to catch up on my email before I collapse, it’s maybe not the best time to try and pick me up. I get a little snarly when I’m sleepy.

Luckily, that didn’t happen this time around. (I’m sure the fact that Layne was with me on this trip had something to do with that…) But I did get to watch a VERY dedicated Aussie boy try and pick up about ten different girls on the same night. It was super impressive.

So, in the last blog post, I briefly mentioned gourmet mac and cheese. I did not go on for several paragraphs about how the cheese was handmade, then aged for a full year before being melted over fresh pasta, and what a glorious, savory thing the final result was. I won’t go on for paragraphs about the mac and cheese in this blog post, either, but suffice it to say that it was very good. Very, very good.

Like, make me weak in the knees thinking about it good.

But this post is about the cheese – all of the cheese! Beecher’s Handmade Cheese is exactly as their name advertises – handmade cheese. And you know it’s handmade because the far wall of their shop is nothing but windows, looking in on the work floor. Two giant metal vat await the organic farm-fresh milk to be poured in and mixed. As Layne and I sat on the milk-can stools by the window, enjoying our amazing mac and cheese, we watched that milk curdle, the curds stacked after they’d drained a little, and then the blocks of curds be stacked yet again, letting gravity do most of the work of squeezing the excess whey from the cheese.

If that description of the cheese-making process sounds boring at all to you, let me tell you that it absolutely wasn’t!! We were riveted. Oh, we both are from Saskatchewan, and thus have seen the inside of a milking barn before. Neither of us was ignorant of how the process worked. But to actually watch the milk metamorphose into a vast sheet of rubbery curds was fascinating.

If you are ever lucky enough to find yourself at Beecher’s, please set aside a couple of hours to enjoy watching the process. Oh, and order a bowl or two of the mac and cheese for me, please!!!

In past years, we had no time to tour Seattle after Emerald City Comic Con was over, because I had to rush back to work on Monday morning. This year, however, we had no time constraints, and so decided to make a vacation out of our trip to Seattle. It actually worked out really nicely – Layne had a science conference to attend just a few days after Emerald City, so we spent the intervening days exploring Seattle.

Pike Place Market is one of my new favorite places ever. Aside from seafood so fresh it’s still alive, the best andouille sausage I’ve seen this far north, and a mountain of FRESH GREENS in early March, it is also littered with interesting little food stalls. We killed half of Monday just wandering around, sampling the fare. Any place that you can start with some gourmet mac and cheese, move on to a few fresh Chinese steamed buns, and then top off the meal with fresh-out-of-the-sea raw oysters is A-OK in my books!

Pike Place is, quite simply put, foodie heaven. I am terribly, terribly sad that I’ll have to wait until next year to visit there again.