October 6, 2007 by Julie.

Seattle: As expected, a bounty of coffeeshops and people running, biking and walking regardless of the weather. Also, in keeping with our observations thus far, Seattle’s high percentage of Subarus seems to directly relate to its high percentage of environmentally conscious citizens…In fact, does someone want to start sending around a petition to Subaru re: a Plug-in Hybrid? because, from what we can tell, Subaru owners would have bought that ticket decades ago.

(*side note: I also noticed an abundance of Naturopathic/Homeopathic Clinics, for the first time on this trip…)

We enjoyed talking to Seattle City Councilman Richard Conlin about new legislation allowing pygmy goats as Seattle pets but, more to the topic, about his optimistic goal of Zero Waste for the city. Using a combination of education, opportunity and incentives, legislators are proving environmentalism a no-brainer for the few financially-myopic holdouts. Conlin says that he doesn’t have to work terribly hard since Seattlans generally pride themselves on being “environmental.”

Lovely eco-Entrepreneur Amy Tucker explained the birth of her brainchild, uber earth-friendly Xeko Games (Endangered Species trading cards- SO COOL - Definitely check them out, particularly if you have kids!). She then toured us around the dang cute neighborhood of Fremont (aka the Center of the Universe), introduced us to our first taste of Truffle Oil French fries at the Baguette Box (which she allows herself once a week), and then hooked us up with a fabulously impromptu and decadent tour of Theo Organic Chocolate Factory by owner and fellow enviro-businessman, Joe Whinney. As nice as he is brilliant (in my cocoa-tinted opinion), Joe is “proud to be the first roaster of Fair Trade Certified™ cocoa beans and the only roaster of organic cocoa beans in the United States.” Which is WONDERFUL but frankly, once we got a taste of his divine chocolate in our yaps, we just really didn’t even care all that much about knowing the details.

I have to say, whatever the reason, the happiness quotient at both Xeko and Theo seemed wonderfully and ridiculously high, and I have to recommend them both, for anyone visiting the Fremont area. Just watch out for the Troll under the bridge. He’s got a thing for Volkswagons…

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October 6, 2007 by Julie.

Ok lack of good sleep, good exercise or real downtime have taken a toll on my psyche so my apologies for not being on top of my game…I will be getting back to the travelog and etc., but for now let me just sort of say where we are at today.

We have just completed our 3rd full month on the road. yay.

We are in Portland, OR, staying with the family Wildes who just treated us to the most wonderful blue cheese garlic tomato pizza at Hotlips. (Thank you, Mark’s cousin, Carl, his sweet wife, Darcy and babe, Kieran) We got interviewed this morning at a Starbucks and we interviewed a lady today at someone’s house…and got some more interviews lined up…

We got some packages sent here for us that were cool. The organic YERT T-shirts that we ordered through zazzle came (girls sizes are pretty small, onesies are super-cute) and also our Klean Kanteens came. So now I don’t have an excuse not to drink enough water.

We just spent the last week or so in the state of Washington where I took a record number of photos and got to see my brother Stephen Andrew and his lovely wife, Yves, which was wonderful, and where we spoke to our first Native American on this trip, as well as our first National Park Ranger.

We are still trying to figure out how to do everything and there is still not enough of us to do it. I finally had to leave the boys upstairs and come be by myself bc the discussions are making me totally stressed. I know they’re important and all but I find them maddening. I was going to blog but then I got down here and i cannot concentrate. And I feel fat.

Hormones aren’t helping. Still, it’s a worthy gig. I’ll be better tomorrow,
when the Portland Farmers Market is hosting cheesemakers of all kinds.
That won’t help the fat part, but it will probably taste awesome.
signing off, the girl portion of this trip,
julie

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