PNW Week: Seattle to Portland on the 101

One final post for the Pacific NorthWest,

... a road trip between the Emerald City and the City of Roses!

PNW Week: A Proper Whirlwind Tour of Seattle

If you are ever in Seattle and only have a day to explore this is what I recommend seeing and doing. Mind you, I am by no means an expert in all things Seattle... but I have given myself the credentials to write this post because I have been on many mini-Seattle tours and made some good Seattle memories there with my good friend Kaylene, who is a resident of this beautiful city. She loves her city and knows all the great little spots.

So, either you are in the area for business, a wedding, or just making a pit-stop on your way to somewhere else, and you just have the day to see Seattle... (and you have access to a car)... I give you the Proper Whirlwind Seattle Tour:

PNW Week: That's My Jam

That's my Jam: The Easiest Raspberry Jam Ever!

By: Amanda Jane

Seriously- the easiest, tastiest, 3-ingredient, no-pectin, raspberry jam you'll ever make!

One of the best parts about about the PNW is the abundance of farm-fresh produce! There is nothing better than a ripe, summer berry. The PNW has an abundance of u-pick, organic, berry farms- the benefit being the ability to eat them at the peak of freshness, pesticide-free (and bonus- they are usually cheaper.) But honestly the first time I made this recipe I used raspberries from Costco- I live in the real world, as much as I'd like everyone to believe I only consume properly harvested, organic berries, I don't (and I'm sure you don't either.) None-the-less this easy freezer jam does a great job of preserving that sweet, gentle raspberry flavor through the long winter months to come- no matter where you get your berries from! 

Ingredients:

Equal parts Raspberries* & Sugar*

1 tsp lemon juice (for @ every 4 cups of berries)- it acts as a natural preservative 

*The other great part about this recipe is that you can easily adjust it to the amount of raspberries you have on hand. Whether you have one cup or eight you can make this recipe just as easily. 

Directions:

1. Put raspberries in a dish, add sugar and lemon juice.

2. Smush together (I used the egg beaters from my mixer by hand) until incorporated. It doesn't have to be perfectly smooth- keep it kind of chunky, the fruit will break down during the cooking process. 

3. Cook and stir occasionally until mixture reaches a rolling boil, then turn down heat to keep at a simmer. 

At this point you will start to see a light foam rise to the top of the pan- this is pectin! Raspberries have one of the highest levels of natural pectin and thus the reason you don't need to add additional pectin. 

4. Keep on a low, soft simmer for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. It should be taking on a slightly thicker texture. 

5. Ladle jam into freezable containers (I prefer 8 oz, 1/2 pint glass, mason jars) 

6. Keep containers full of jam at room temperature until cooled (at this point the jam should have set to a jelly-like consistency.) 

7. Store in freezer until ready to eat, then store in your fridge. 

Notables:

*This jam's consistency is soft, but not runny. It is also spreadable straight from the freezer (for when you need jam on your toast and need it NOW.) 

*Add some of this jam to lemonade for a tasty raspberry-lemonade.

*I've also made this jam adding some peaches- it is a little runnier, but still a stellar spread!

*For cute labels for your jam, check out these free canning printables on printable city.

Eat up!

PNW Week: Foraging Organic

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We are wrapping up the week of Proper Mountain Women in the Pacific Northwest with a few more posts, hope you enjoy them. I have enjoyed focusing on this beautiful area, I thought I had a crush on the Pacific Northwest before we decided to post about it and now I am totally in love. It's sort of been a virtual week long visit for me, remembering previous trips up there, and reading and discovering more about it online has been really fun for me.

The Pacific Northwest is so different from everywhere else, and I guess you could argue that every corner of America has their own unique vibe... but where else is this parody of a couple ordering "local chicken" sort of accurate?

Yeah, I've thought of moving to Portland or Seattle a few times... because I love it up there, but I don't know if I am passionate enough about where my chicken comes from to fit in. As a conservative christian woman, my political and religious beliefs couldn't be more opposite from the majority of my Portlandia and Seattleite friends and citizens.

But if I were homeless and had to forage for food... I would move to Seattle in a heartbeat.

Have you heard of the Beacon Food Forest? Read that link and discover Seattle's idea for a 7 acre "forest" in the middle of Beacon where people can come and pick free food... it will be the largest urban food forest on public land. Sounds like a magical Utopia, too good to be true, like Leslie Knope is behind it or something. I would love to live next to a free food forest. To read more about it, click here.

In late summer months, all around Washington there are wild berries to pick and eat. My brother ate them along on his bike rides as a missionary in Olympia, and at the beginning of August I snagged a few off some bushes at Gas Works Park. I liked this parenting article I found online called Summer Urban Foraging: Pick Wild Berries in Local Parks.

I once found the weirdest internet site, years ago when making your own website was bran new, where someone was trying to chart all the free edible plants around Provo. I thought it was hilarious... a bike trail where you could pick fruit and not get caught, genius. I wish it still existed. Well, the Pacific Northwest has the foraging thing locked down. There is a huge online community, and tons of resourses for those who would like to get in on the foraging scene.

Read about this magical place called Hylebos Blueberry Park, it used to be a blueberry farm, but now it's a public park.

To the delight of many proper mountain women, there are plenty of U-Pick Berry Farms in the Pacific Northwest. Doesn't spending a day out picking berries sound absolutely delightful?
Check this article out for Portland, and this article out for Seattle.


(berries at University District Farmers Market)

If I lived in the PNW I would practice making pies and jams every year with all that berry goodness. Doesn't that sound so proper mountain women-ly?

To read Amanda Jane's recipe for the easiest raspberry jam ever, CLICK HERE.

PNW Week: We Are Adventurers! (Sea Glass Hunting Pt. 2)

We Are Adventurers!!!

By: Amanda Jane

My husband, Nic, loves Seattle. It really was the city of his dreams. To him it was perfectly green and perpetually cloudy. If Nic could live anywhere, forever, it would be Seattle, that’s why we were so excited when we found out he was accepted into a program at the University of Washington. However, moving to Seattle felt like a meaningless rebound to me. I truly was heartbroken to leave behind the life we had built in Omaha. Seattle felt so cold and lonely- but a large chunk of that was just my state of mind. With three kids and a husband in graduate school (going on four years) I was feeling some serious fatigue. I was sick of being poor, sick of having my husband gone studying 12 hours or more a day, sick of job interviews that never went anywhere. But more than anything I was sick of the unknown. We had invested all of our time, our marriage, our family, our faith, our money into a career that was sucking the life out of us. We were living off of faith, but often felt like we were drowning in quicksand. Beyond working hard and praying for help we were at the complete mercy of someone wanting to hire Nic. We had no idea where we’d be living, how we’d pay off our monstrous student loans, or even if we could find a legal job anywhere. From the outside it may seem trivial, but for us it felt all consuming. And there was nothing we could do but hope and wait.

Nic and I celebrated our 10th anniversary the month we moved to Seattle. With no other choice than to do something free, with all three kids in tow, all I wanted to do was go find some sea glass to mark the occasion. I had never found sea glass before but thought that the analogy of something rough and broken transforming into something  smooth and beautiful over time made for the perfect marriage analogy and would make for a terrific anniversary memory. So we went to a beach and searched for two hours and couldn't find a single, stupid piece of sea glass. 

Although I had spent hours looking for sea glass on our anniversary the first time I found some I wasn't even looking for it (and thus the first lesson of sea glass!) For a time in my life that felt entirely out of my hands collecting sea glass became the perfect hobby to teach me to be better at rolling with the punches. Finding quality sea glass isn't something you have complete control over- you are constantly at the mercy of the tides and the length of time the sea glass has been immersed. You can do everything “right” and find nothing or nature can throw you a bone and you find an amazing purple that matches your nail polish. I think the most beautiful lesson for me was that you really have no control over what (if any treasures) you will find on a given day - but when you do you feel lucky, and if you have an off day (or week) there is always tomorrow. For me it was a big lesson in perspective. I went to the beach multiple times a week, as pathetic as it sounds it was the best friend I had the year we lived there. I rarely listed to my music as I walked the shore, instead I would pour my soul out to the ocean waves. There is something incredibly monotonous and comforting about the clockwork of the tides, in and out over and over and over again forever. And thus it is with life- the tides will come and go, sometimes I will find amazing treasures and some days I’ll leave empty handed. But so much of what I find will be determined not by what I’m looking for per say, but the fact that I find things to be thankful for and excited for while I wait for what I’m looking for to happen.

"... an amazing purple that matches your nail polish."

My very best memory of our life in Seattle was when I bundled up all three kids in the middle of a freezing February day and we headed down to the beach. It was so cold and windy and the closer you got to the water the colder and windier the moisture-filled air felt. I’m sure the diners inside of the fancy, beachfront restaurant that overlooks the water wondered what kind of a mother brought their children to the beach under such conditions. But what they could never understand while peeling their fresh shrimp and sipping their cocktails was that we needed to get out of that house, Nic was studying and we were all feeling suffocated. Without telling the kids I thought to myself “we are going to be adventurous today even if it kills us.” It was so cold our noses and fingers were nearly numb even under our scarves and gloves, so windy that our hoods kept blowing off our head and the waves so powerful that it felt like we were constantly getting sprinkled with salt water rain. And then we started laughing. And then we couldn’t stop. Because we all knew how ridiculous it was to be outside, at the beach, in the middle of a storm. Then without warning my eight-year-old daughter, Scarlett, pulled out her video camera and started running down the beach yelling “We are adventurers! We are adventurers!” And so we all did the same thing as we raced back to the car. Right before I stepped off the rocky beachfront I found the biggest, most beautiful piece of sea glass I have found to date- it felt like it was Mother Nature’s way of thanking me for not being a fair weather friend. I stuck it in my coat pocket and caught up with the kids and once again joined in with gusto “We are adventurers! We are adventurers!” all the way back home.

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PNW Week: Sea Glass Hunting 101

Sea Glass Hunting 101
By: Amanda Jane

"Oh, I collect sea glass"

I've moved nearly a dozen times in the last decade. One of things I have hated most during the “getting to know you” phase is when people would ask me “so what are your hobbies?” The thing is, I have plenty of things I’m passionate about, but they are all kind of obscure and it always felt out of place mentioning my quirkiness in these moments when I was trying to come off as a normal (enough) person. Instead I always went for the obvious “Oh, I guess I like books” answer.

Because truthfully, unless we are counting (which I am not) the brief and regrettable magician phase I went through in 8th grade- I've never had a bona fide answer when faced with the dreaded “hobby” question. I hated the question and my lack of response so much that six-months before I turned thirty I told Whitney we needed to try a bunch of hobbies to find out what I was good at. We vowed to go deep sea fishing, try basket weaving, hang gliding and about a dozen other things before I turned thirty. We did none of them.

But the idea stayed with me. I think there is something really cool about learning a new hobby in adulthood. It is so much more exciting than when we are kids and our parents sign us up for soccer or tennis camp and we just do it because we are bored. Normal, adult life is so often boring and stale but having a hobby to look forward to was just the thing I needed.

[Enter seaglass]

I'd always wanted to find sea glass, but had just never been to the right beach I guess. The best part was that I stumbled into sea glass collecting when I discovered the beach five minutes from my house was littered with the frosty, hidden treasures. After I found a plethora of sea glass colors there, I next found out everything I could about the history of that little beach. At one point in time that beachfront housed the biggest amusement park in Washington. Prior to that it was home to a general store, that boats could dock at when the tide rolled in. Long before I was ever born there was a sign above it’s turn of the century pier that proclaimed this was the place “Where woods & water meet.” It was the perfect description of this small, rocky beachfront snuggled in the middle of the Puget Sound. 

Sea glass hunting is the perfect mixture of history, adventure, luck and finding pretty, little, abandoned treasures. I liked the ocean just as much as the next guy prior to getting into sea glass, but after I really got into sea glass I finally “got” the whole ocean thing. I was head over heels in love with that mile-long stretch of land and semi-sea. There was just something so rewarding about finding these little treasures and having the wind blow salt water mist in your face. Despite everything this blog stands for I am not a super outdoorsy girl. But out there I loved every minute of it.  There was something so mystical about searching the sand for these tiny left behind treasures. No wonder some people call sea glass mermaid tears. 

Sea glass is essentially glass that was left at the mercy of the water and waves. Over time (decades if you’re doing it right) the churning of the waves turn the broken chunks of glass into smooth, refined treasures. All the while the water draws minerals from the glass leaving it with that distinctive frosted and pitted look pure sea glass is known for. Generally speaking, the longer a piece has been underwater the smoother it becomes. You can often times identify the age of your find by the color or material it was made of (for example a pale yellow called vaseline glass was popular primarily in the 1920’s is one my favorite pieces.)  There is also a rarity scale when it comes to sea glass (for example whites and browns are most common, whereas reds and yellows are very rare.) Some of my favorite finds weren’t actually glass, but rather sea pottery (from abandoned china and dinnerware). You can also find sea glass at a lake, but it is technically called beach glass. Generally speaking sea glass that isn’t frosted or has sharp corners isn't ready yet- so you should just throw it back! There are exceptions- for example there are some really cool shards that for whatever reason just didn’t end up all the way smooth or very frosty but are still really old. I have a piece of Clorox bottle from the 1930’s that I love and it’s edges aren't entirely smooth. So for the most part if it is shiny or is sharp it isn’t ready- throw it back. The thing I love about sea glass is that every piece you find has a story. How did it get there? The stories range from ocean-side city dumps to ship wrecks to just plain old littering. But the best part is that no matter how it got there mother nature takes something discarded and unwanted and overtime makes it into something beautiful again. 

Sea Glass Hunting 101

Best weather for finding sea glass: overcast

Every time I went on a sunny day I was disappointed. It’s much easier to see the sheen of the sea glass when the sun isn’t shining on it. But different light conditions seem to make different colors more visible. 

Best beaches: rocky 

Preferably a rocky beach that was a city dump 100 years ago! A gentle beach just doesn’t have the ability to agitate the rock into a smooth stone. 

Best time: low tide, after a full moon and storm would be ideal

I loved learning to follow the tides. The lower the tide the more the beach was exposed. It was fun to go to the beach between the tides and see how much had changed. The other time to go was after a big storm had really churned up the area and moved things around. 

Best places to look: Near driftwood, under rocks or other hidden places

My other favorite place to look was at the tide lines where little things had collected forming squiggly lines on the shoreline. For some reason at my beach a large majority of my sea glass was found collected in that middle section where the tide started to recede. 

Best shoes: cute rain boots 

Best advice: Don’t expect to find anything in particular because you have no control over what will show up. Some days are amazing and some are just meh! When I first started I picked up things I never would now- you become pickier because you know what is “good” and what is still just litter. But the thing is if you know where to look and just keep searching with no expectations you’ll be really delighted when an awesome find appears before your eyes.

for a run down of sea glass colors and their rarity, visit this site: north beach treasures

from that same site: the"rarest of the rare"

PNW Week: Meet Me at Mill Ends Park

Back in the summer of 1995 the chatter around the ole' Highland neighborhood was that the school boundaries had changed. I was about to enter the sixth grade and my final year at Highland Elementary, and I was bugged at this news that the grown ups were messing everything up. Back then there were only two elementary schools, one for Highland, and one for Alpine. Though our towns were close and shared the same junior high and high school buildings, the elementary school kids did not blend. And I didn't want to. Sure, as a kid a year away from entering junior high I knew it was inevitable, that one day I would be forced to learn alongside the rich Alpiners, who lived in their snotty mansions and drove nice cars... I just didn't think that day would be this year. It felt like I had been gypped my final year at Highland Elm., I didn't want to meet new kids, I just wanted one more year with the same old faces I had known since first grade.

It must have been that same year that Utah got an Old Navy because all the cool Alpine girls showed up wearing Old Navy t-shirts and dog tag necklaces. That was the first time I remember wanting to fit in better at school and being aware of the brands people wore (up until this point the only thing I thought would be cool to wear was a white Highland Hawks sweatshirt). I remember finally going to Old Navy around Christmas time for gift shopping, and being so excited to have my mom buy me a dog tag necklace.... but realized, after I proudly wore it the first week back to school from the break, that they weren't cool any more.

One Alpine girl who didn't seem like the other girls who joined our school that year and who happened to be in my home classroom was Amanda. Though she definitely fit in with her Alpine cronies, she didn't act like them. I listened in on their conversations and it sounded like she knew them all really well, she could joke with them and make them laugh and the feeling from the group was that they respected her. The Alpine kids I was a little intimated by seemed to be comfortable around her and put their guard down. She was funny, and had an underlying cool quirky demeanor.

We didn't become good friends that year, but because of that demeanor I naturally gravitated to her in junior high. As the oldest kid in my family, and having older cousins tell you that being in the marching band was cool, I was a little lost at the new big school. I viewed Amanda as my safety boat,  in a sea of girly clicks whose waves might toss me onto an island where I beat a snare drum in the band nerd parade.... I wanted her to paddle me far away from that. I felt good around Amanda because she was smart and knew what was hip, but preferred the funny and the weird. I needed that. Lucky for me she let me sit with her blend of weirdos at her locker every day for lunch.

We've been best friends ever since. 

Amanda always seems finds the strange and bizarre things in life, and delights and celebrates her findings. Nothing is boring around her...small little trinkets, friendship bracelets, creepy city sites around town, and songs on the radio.. all are given a significant meaning, even for purely comical reasons. Every time we drove past her neighbors house she made me stop at this weird red train sign that was placed there as yard decor, simply because the idea of her neighbors looking out their windows and watching cars treat it as a stop sign cracked her up. She always had a backpack with her, full of dress up clothes and odd objects that might be handy on our weekend exploits. We used to throw parties, make a ton of weird food, and invite people we didn't even know out of our year book over to play "spin the fish". On every New Years Eve she had us all pick a word that we weren't supposed to use all year long, and we had to figure out each others word throughout the year. She found out we could become ministers online, so we both became ordained priests.

Because of her fascination and awe for the small and peculiar things in life, and because peculiar things eventually find her, it was only a matter of time before she discovered the most adorable park located in Portland, Oregon... Mill Ends Park. She literally had stars in her eyes when she first told me about it.

Have you heard of this park? It's amazing!

Mill Ends Park, located in a two foot wide hole on a median strip of Naito Parkway, in downtown Portland, is the world's smallest park. It's history on how it came to be is absolutely adorable. A newspaper columnist in 1948 named Dick Fagan planted flowers in the abandoned hole and named the hole "Mill Ends" after his column in the paper. Dick told the story that he was looking out the window where he worked and saw a leprechaun digging in the hole, he quickly ran over and grabbed the little guy, because everyone knows when you grab a leprechaun you get a wish. Dick told the leprechaun, Patrick O'Toole, that he wished for a park of his own... but since he didn't specify a size for the park, the leprechaun made that hole the park.

Dick Fagan, who must share the same kind of soul as my friend Amanda, continued to write about this whimsical park in his column for years, sharing stories with his readers about the latest Mill Ends happenings, and often wrote about the leprechauns who lived in the park. Once, when the mayor of Portland proposed an 11:00 p.m. curfew on all city parks, Dick published a response from the leprechaun, O'Toole, who threatened a curse upon the mayor and dared him to try and evict him and his friends. In the end, the mayor took no legal action and let the leprechauns stay in the park after hours..

Portland is full of enough weird and whimsical people who take silly things seriously that the have taken care of Mill Ends for Dick Fagan since he died in 1969. The city made it an official city park in 1976. They once even brought in a tiny Ferris wheel to add to the park, and the city used a normal size crane to do it! That's insane!


It makes me happy to think that there is a whole city out there that delights and celebrates the magical weirdness in life. Every country needs a Portland. For those people who don't want to conform to a boring "Alpine" city, Portland is their safe harbor, it rebels against the normal... and that's how Amanda has always been to me. A renegade who lets you be your weird self.

Amanda and I made a promise that one day we would visit Mill Ends Park, and have the world's smallest picnic there. One day we will make, the closest we have come so far is when my sister visited Portland earlier this year and we made her find the park and take a picture for us:

Thank heavens for Portlands and Amandas.

The world would be much more normal and scary without them.

PNW Week: Lily Von's Guide to Portland

A Proper Mountain Woman's Guide to Portland

written & illustrated by Lily Von

(who is a dear friend, Portland resident, and proper lady)



PNW Week: Flowers Flowers Flowers

Every proper mountain woman loves a clean kitchen with a vase of fresh cut flowers on the table. Sometimes I will splurge on a bouquet of flowers at Costco to fill my vases at home, it's not practical at all, but if there isn't flowers to cut from your own garden, flowers from the store sitting on your kitchen table will add a pep to your step every time you see them.

When I'm in the Pacific Northwest and happen upon a farmers market, like the one we ran into last month in the U-District, and see all the flower arrangements and how much they cost! Wow, I start to drool because I want to be able to buy them all, sooo many flowers in such pretty arrangements, and super cheap... I can't handle it. You proper mountain women up there are spoiled.

One flower that does extremely well in the PNW is the majestic Dahlia... oh my goodness, I love these flowers so much and all the crazy varieties they come in. You can grow them in Utah but they aren't as popular here, in the PNW they are considered a No-Fail Perenial. It's my dream to have a yard of dahlia's one day and to out do this Utah gentleman.

Here's some dahlias I captured in Volunteer Park a few weeks ago:

Another cool thing about dahlia's, the fans of these beautiful flowers group together and form dahlia clubs (whose members are mostly elderly gardeners). A few years back we happened upon the Puget Sound Dahlia Association having a picnic in Volunteer Park... the association was made up of older distinguished residents of Seattle, and they were very excited about the dahlia's blooming, and they let us have some of the blooms they had cut! That's the sort of club I want to be in when I grow old.

Dahlia Associations:

The Puget Sound Dahlia Association

The Utah Dahlia Society

If you are like me, and don't have the courage to try your hand at dahlias just yet, might I suggest their baby sister..... Zinnias! Zinnias are like mini dahlias... and way easier to grow in Utah. They literally take no effort and bring full color and cheerfulness to your yard. They are also awesome for cutting and will last a long time in a vase of water, bringing their happy presence inside.

There is a house in the town over from me that grows zinnias as a fence every summer... here's a picture Amanda snapped of it:

Whoever lives in this house must be a beautiful soul. Maybe they are a fellow proper mountain woman. I need to go knock on the door and meet who plants this fantastic zinnia fence year after year. They must harvest their own zinnia seeds as well.

Speaking of which, if you get into zinnias, harvesting their seeds for next summer's use (as they are annuals) or to share with other zinnia lovers would be very proper of you. Here's a little how-to video on how it's done (click here), and you don't have to tell people how easy it is.

At the U-District Farmer's Market I saw bouquets made from zinnias which they paired with Queen Anne's Lace (shown below).... don't you love the combination? On my to-do list next Spring is to buy me some queen anne's lace seeds to plant so I can also make these bouquets next summer:

The PNW has a unique wet climate allowing many flowers to thrive... and if we are talking about dahlias and zinnias, we need to round out the holy trinity of flowers and discuss Ranunculus. Ranunculus are perfect... I've never met a proper mountain woman that doesn't absolutely adore them. They grow wild in this part of the world, but can be planted and do well in high a desert climate.

image found here

I feel like I can't end this flower post without mentioning the flower festivals that go on in the PNW. Google 'tulip festival washington state' images and prepare yourself for tulip beauty overload.

Check these following links out:

Skagit Tulip Festival - Washington

Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm - Oregon

International Rose Test Garden - Oregon

Woodland Park Rose Garden - Washington

Swan Island Dahlia Festival - Oregon

Seattle Dahlia Show - Washington

Spokane Lilac Festival - Washington

Festival of Flowers - Oregon

U-Cut Flowers - Washington

U-Cut Flowers - Oregon

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Becoming any sort of flower expert and being able to use the word 'tubers' and not sound like an idiot is a goal worth pursing. This last visit to Seattle we stayed in Capitol Hill and walked passed some rad flowers being grown in those Seattleite front yards, it inspired me to plant more flowers, and not just the kind I see in the Home Depot gardening section... I want to order some bulb catalogs and add some funky flowers and PNW color to my garden scenery!

Down the road when I have some extra dahlia tubers to share, you'll be the first to know, I will definitely share,

Peace and dahlia tubers,

Whitney

PNW Week: The Mountain is Out

The Mountain is Out

By: Amanda Jane

For some reason Seattle made my soul restless. It never felt like my home, just a space I was awkwardly borrowing until I was beckoned back home. No matter how hard I tried to love it, it just never felt like it was mine. As we drove our moving truck out of town for the last time I realized the only two things I would really miss deep down inside were sea glass and Mt. Rainier.

Although I’m a Rocky Mountain girl at heart, the majesty of Mt. Rainier was never lost on me. Whether flying above it’s snow capped craters or spying it through a thick hazy fog it always had this ethereal, painted-into-the-sky quality about it. Despite being born and raised nestled in the heart of many jagged mountain peaks I've come to think of that hulking, mountain, volcano as the most powerful, stand-alone peak of them all. There was truly something mystical about Mt. Rainier (not the least of which was it’s designation as one of the world’s deadliest volcanoes.) Like some kind of natural optical illusion Rainier has the ability to look the same size from downtown Seattle as it does thirty-miles away. Because Mt. Rainier is so much taller than any other peak in the Cascade range, it rules the skyline, leaving every other peak surrounding it basically forgotten.

Washington has a reputation for being perpetually gloomy, so when you actually catch a glimpse of Rainier it signifies an extra special kind of day. Just like the forgotten Cascade peaks Washingtonians also bowed down to the queen of the natural skyline- Seattle landmarks like the University of Washington and the Space Needle were built so that they would frame Rainier when she was visible. For all the holes Seattle didn't fill in my soul I always found beauty in the way that when “the mountain was out” it signified an especially beautiful day. Because of her ever-present size and scope it sometimes felt like Rainier ruled the weather and only came out when she felt like it, rather than the other way around. In a place that so often made me feel so out of place, seeing Mt. Rainier brought me out of my own haze and gave me a reason to feel connected.

Old photo of Mount Rainier framed by the Court of Honor at UW:

Photo found here

Pictures taken by Amanda:

If you live in Seattle and are too busy to look out the window... here's a twitter account that lets you know "Is the mountain out?", CLICK HERE

PNW Week: The Puget Sound and The Ballard Locks

We are starting things off with a quick overview of the Puget Sound.

Last month, my parents and I went on a road trip to Seattle for a wedding, it was my mom and dad's first visit to Seattle and my mom kept saying how excited she was to get there and be near an ocean because she tries to see the ocean every year. She was surprised to find out that Seattle, though it's described as a coastal seaport, is not by the open ocean, it's nicely tucked way back on the Puget Sound.

Let me refresh your third grade vocab, a sound is a large sea or ocean inlet that is larger than a bay, deeper than a bright, and wider than a fjord. It is a narrow ocean channel between two bodies of land. And the Puget Sound is a huge sound... see the image below.

Image found here

If you look at that small dot where Seattle is located next the Puget Sound, you begin to realize all the exploration and adventure this place has offer. There are literally hundreds of if little inlets all along the sound, spanning between the Cascade Mountains and the Olympic Peninsula. It's not hard to believe that Seattle has more boats, and people living on boats, than almost anywhere else in the world (excluding parts of south asia). It's a huge part of Seattle's history... because of the mountainous Olympic and Cascade region, the water was the easiest way to get around, back in the day there were thousands of small ferries and freight boats on the sound... these busy traders eventually established regular picking up and dropping off points around the Puget Sound, and some of these points became towns... and some of those old trading post towns are still around today. Something I would love to do is experience that gorgeous area by boat, and explore all the little quaint villages and marinas along this beautiful area. From Friday Harbor on the San Juan Islands to Olympia... they say you can plan to retire in the Puget Sound to spend the rest of your golden years boating around the breathtaking views and corners, and never see the same place twice!

I think an epic proper mountain woman trip would be to learn how to captain a boat, then rent a boat, and travel around this misty haven... pulling up to a dock to get some great sea food, or camping on a secluded beach on the San Juan islands, spending a day near the Emerald City, or jutting down to Olympia... watching the scenery change with each inlet you explore... sudden surges of rock, or a cliff a hundred feet high and fifty feet across, holding tiny forests on their platter tops, people watching and being on the look out for sea creatures. Doesn't that sound enjoyable?

Read about these Top 5 Boating Destinations in the Puget Sound, I would love to experience these places. 

Side note: It might interest you to know that a pod of orca whales calls this place home, and just over a week ago this local pod of whales welcomed a new baby calf to the Puget Sound!

Sooo... now that you know that Seattle is situated along the Puget Sound. you will find it fascinating to realize that the city is actually on a narrow isthmus... with the Puget Sound on one side and Lake Washington on the other... it blows my mind! It's two ecosystems merging into one very unique city... 

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They have had to be pretty creative in designing traffic in this city... both for the people in their cars and the people in their boats. Below is one of the floating bridges you can drive on in Seattle.

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One of my favorite places that I have visited in Seattle is the Ballard Locks. If you happen to find yourself in Seattle try to make time to stop here... even though I have been there several times it's always a fun experience. The Ballard Locks, located in the Ballard neighborhood, were built to help move boats back and forth, from the water level of Lake Union to the water level of the Puget Sound. So when you visit the Ballard Locks you are watching ships and boats come in, and the water raise and lower them... when you first see it, it sort of trips you out. And if you have questions about what the heck is going on... well, walk across the walkway to the little visitors center on the other side of the locks, there you can see the man-made salmon latter, view a giant map of the area, and talk to a friendly visitors center guide.

For a fun morning, I would recommend driving out to Ballard Locks, stopping somewhere in Ballard along the way to grab some food (there's a ton of interesting stores and bakeries), and if it's not raining... finding a bench along the locks to sit and eat and take in the scenery.

Other cool things and places to eat in Ballard:

Cafe Besalu - for macaroons

Wild Mountain Cafe - for breakfast

Ballard Pizza Company - for pizza

Ballard Farmers Market - every Sunday

Golden Gardens - lovely beach, campfire friendly, views of the Olympic mountains

Stoneburner - for brunch

Hot Cakes - molten lava cake in a jar OR milk and cookies

PMW in the PNW!

Proper Mountain Women in the Pacific Northwest

For the next little while on this blog we will be highlighting the beautiful Pacific Northwest... for all the proper mountain women who are lucky enough to live there and for those who day-dream of traveling there... this is for you!

I absolutely love any chance I get to visit the Pacific Northwest, it is a glorious part of the country... not only is it chalk full of natural beauty (the orchards, the mountains, the rain forest, and the ocean), it's where two of the most beautiful, weird, and unique cities in the country make their home, Portland and Seattle.

The Pacific Northwest is Mecca for Proper Mountain Women... to be completely surrounded by forestry evergreens, thriving art, home-made goods, farmers markets, PLUS weather that allows you to bundle up, wear boots, let your hair go wild...  AND on top of all that, you are never too far from delicious, organic, fun restaurants to try out... well, we proper mountain women can't get enough.

If you google the Pacific Northwest there is an endless amount of "travel guides" and "best of the PNW" lists already written... so we hope to present a Pacific Northwest that is different from what is readily available in a quick Internet search. This week will be a Proper Mountain Woman's guide to the Pacific Northwest, or PMW in the PNW. It isn't going to be your normal "must sees" of the area (though we will have a whirlwind tour of Seattle for you), this will be Pacific Northwest stuff that is off the beaten path, that maybe only a proper mountain woman would delight in.

Some of my close mountain women friends who live in the area have written some wonderful posts/articles for me to share about places to enjoy and new hobbies to try in this unique part of the country... I hope some of the information is new and exciting to you, or inspires you to get out and explore your own area the way a proper mountain woman would.

Here we go!

Posts:
the puget sound and ballard locks
the mountain is out  (by amanda jane)
flowers flowers flowers
lily von's guide to portland (by lily von)
meet me at mill ends park 
sea glass hunting 101 (pt. 1) (by amanda jane)
we are adventurers (sea glass hunting pt. 2) (by amanda jane)
foraging organic
that's my jam (by amanda jane)
a proper whirlwind tour of seattle
seattle to portland on the 101