Ellensburg – Sep 2017

Following on from my last post (read me), I was finally making my way over to Washington State for the first time! It’s an incredibly beautiful state but the motivation for my trip was the company and the opportunity to finally meet Maddie, Cassie and Haleigh. I was both excited and nervous!

I kicked off my Sunday morning waking up in London. Tottenham had been playing over at Wembley on Saturday evening and it didn’t seem worthwhile going all the way back to Peterborough just to fly out of London on Sunday morning. With that said, with Tottenham playing at Wembley I decided I’d just book a hotel for the night near Wembley Stadium and I found that it’s such an inconvenient part of London to try to get to Heathrow from.

In fairness I think if you take the ‘Heathrow Express’ train you can get there quickly and quite conveniently from Wembley but I’d rather save money by taking the tube which meant going back towards Central London to then come back out again towards Heathrow. Beforehand I’d envisaged getting a bit of a lay in or a more relaxing morning but between the long tube journey and a Sunday service I’m not sure my day would have started much differently had I just gone home for the night instead. Oh well, lesson learned I suppose (Wembley’s a pain!).

Anyway, eventually I was arriving at Heathrow and breezing through security. I decided I’d find somewhere to get some breakfast in the airport and found a place with pancakes on the menu which seemed the perfect way to kick off the American adventure!

Soon enough I was on the way to Seattle – that city all the way over on the West Coast of the USA – I think it’s something like 4,500 miles away. It was my longest journey since flying to Sydney four years earlier and when you look on a map they couldn’t seem further apart. You’ve got Sydney sitting down in the South East corner of the World and Seattle sitting up in the North West. With England somewhere in the middle both cities feel so far away!

Fortunately unlike Sydney, you can at least fly directly from London to Seattle so the journey didn’t seem too bad. I kept myself amused with the in-flight entertainment and landed in Washington at around 3:30pm local time I think (11:30pm UK time).

Maddie, Cassie and Haleigh were all waiting for me at Seatac airport with a surprise welcome sign to greet me. Unfortunately for them they weren’t waiting at the same section I came out of. I came out of security with no idea where they were and the airport Wi-Fi wasn’t being too co-operative so I couldn’t drop one of them a message.

Instead I figured I’d just walk for a bit and hoped I’d either see them or find a better Wi-Fi spot in the airport. It ended up being the former, I hadn’t walked too far when I spotted the three of them and started approaching them. Amusingly though they had their backs to me so they ended up getting the surprise rather than the other way around. Oops! Haha.

Having said our hello’s we quickly made our way over to the car park to get out of Seatac asap! Although I’d flown in to Seattle, we wouldn’t actually be spending any time in the city until Friday. I was spending my first couple of nights in Ellensburg with Maddie and Cassie where the pair of them lived.

Ellensburg’s a college town, a town which both Maddie and Cassie went to college in (and Haleigh did previously). It’s a couple of hours away from Seattle which sits on the West side of the mountains, with Ellensburg sitting on the East side of the mountains. Consequently that meant driving through / over the mountains to get back to Ellensburg.

Before leaving the Seattle area we made a quick stop and dropped in on Cassie’s family, Cassie had something she needed to pick up and take home so it was a nice opportunity to be introduced to some of her family before we headed back. We then picked up some pizza for the drive home and were on our way.

I think I pretty much spent the entire journey with my face glued to the window. It probably doesn’t help that I live in such a flat part of England but the mountain views just had me in complete awe. The funny thing being that due to the current climate the view was nowhere near as good as it usually is.

The above picture was from a spring visit this year but for this particular trip Washington was still suffering the aftermath of forest fires in the region. The day that I arrived was actually the first bit of rain they’d had in a while and it was much needed. Despite a little rain the sky was still a bit hazy, the air quality was awful and the smoke, oh my god the smoke..

Theoretically it wasn’t even that bad, this was essentially post-fire-smoke lingering in the air and yet I still found the smoke unbearable. I dread to think how bad the air quality was whilst the fires were going on.  Even with the windows of the car closed all I could taste was smoke in my mouth, my throat felt awful for a good 2-3 days after arriving in Washington.

Soon enough I’d unstuck my face from the window because we’d arrived on the other side of the mountains and we were finally in Ellensburg. Sadly Haleigh was teaching on Monday morning so couldn’t stick around to spend the evening with us.

Myself, Maddie and Cassie relaxed for a little bit but soon went out to get a couple of beers at one of Ellensburg’s bars, forgive me but I can’t remember the name of it. It was cool though and also nice to have my first Washington beer. I always enjoy trying the local beers and seeing how they compare across the globe.

We weren’t out too late which I was quite appreciative of, the eight hour time difference is a bit of a killer. I think it was about 4-5am UK time by the time I’d got myself to bed. It had been a nice start to the trip but I needed a good night’s rest to set me up for the rest of the trip.

The next morning I was up at a fairly reasonable time. I don’t know if I was the first one awake but first one downstairs at least which seemed to please the four-legged housemates, particularly the dogs. Hamilton and Olivia were both friendly and didn’t seem fazed at having me around. Olivia in particular was constantly seeking attention so I’d quickly made a new friend in her. The cats were a little less curious although did come and sit with me at various points of my stay which was nice and I managed to sneak in a few photos before they ran off.

As suggested further up, Ellensburg is a college town and consequently not really somewhere that tourists tend to visit. Nevertheless I was personally looking forward to seeing what Ellensburg had to offer, it can be nice getting away from the big cities and seeing a different side to the US. With the sheer size of the country you quickly see how diverse it is from place to place.

Maddie wasn’t feeling particularly great so we didn’t do too much with our morning other than relax. For lunch we went out to some teriyaki chicken place. It’s not something I’ve ever really seen here so I guess isn’t as popular in the UK, by all means feel free to correct me but it was the first time I’d tried it anyway.

It was enjoyable but the portion was way too big, I think the sauce grows sickly after a while too so it’s something I could eat again but not something I could eat a lot of if that makes sense?

Following on from lunch we ventured over to the Kittitas County historical museum. It was small but worth a visit, free admission too which was a bonus! I can’t expect they get many English visitors so I made sure to sign the guestbook after having had a look around the museum. It was interesting.

We popped in to some shop afterwards and then made our way back to the house. Cassie had to work and it was a good opportunity for Maddie to get a little rest before making evening plans. I took it as a chance to catch up on the happenings back home and keep the four-legged ones company.

In the evening we went out to “the Tav” – an Ellensburg favourite which is a nice little sports bar in town. I’ve been there a couple of times now and it has had a nice atmosphere on both occasions. I’m sure it’d be a good place to go and watch a big sports game too although my visits have only ever been on a casual basis so I’m just speculating haha. We met one of Maddie’s friends again, grabbed some food and had a couple of beers before moving on to a bar called ‘Shooters’.

Shooters is essentially a gaming bar – a mixture of video and board games which cover all of the classics plus modern day favourites. It’s quite a small place but that makes it cosy too.

Again it had a friendly atmosphere, a good range of different beers to try and then you can play a variety of games depending on what you’re in the mood for. The three of us ended up playing a bit of Star Wars Monopoly before calling it a night, such is the length of Monopoly I don’t think we got near finishing it so ended without a winner haha.

We grabbed some food on the drive home which gave me another ‘first’ – my first ever churro! I’d say if you’re going to try your first churro perhaps save it for Spain rather than Washington but they were still good and it was welcome timing to try them too given I was going to be in Madrid a month later.

Cassie finished up work around the same time so we rounded off the evening eating food and chatting before heading to sleep. The next morning I chilled out a bit before Cassie kindly dropped me over at the bus station as I made my way on to my second destination of this trip.

Ellensburg had offered a fun start to my time in Washington. After so many years of friendship I’d finally got to spend some time with Maddie, Cassie had made me feel equally welcome in their home and of course I’d made a few new four-legged friends too. It was a good start to the trip but I was excited to see what was yet to come. I’d be seeing Maddie and Cassie again before heading home but for now it was time to bid farewell to Ellensburg. I boarded my bus and was heading for Spokane!

More on that next! Stay tuned!

Jason