Road trip!

(Warning: My posts are all out of order. It's summer and my brain is on haitus.)

Despite living in Seattle for three years and knowing parts of the city better than me, the Pirate has been car-less until recently and has therefore never explored the wonders of Eastern Washington. I decided that this had to change and took it upon myself to be her guide.

We developed a 3-pronged attack. First, we headed to Cashmere to the Applets and Cotlets factory. Aside from being my favorite factory tour EVER, the Aplets and Cotlets truly are better straight from the factory. We had some great creme puffs from the Sure to Rise bakery and stocked up on candies for the drive to Ellensburg, the next part of our trip.

(yeah, there are no pictures of Cashmere, I was busy. Eating.)

On the way back over Blewett Pass, we experienced the local agricultural economy:


An apple truck is not so exciting when you're stuck behind it for miles. We tried to go over Old Blewett Pass, but it was closed for construction:


I was really excited to get to Ellensburg because I hadn't really been back since I graduated in 2003. It was crazy. They have a Wendy's now? And a Taco Del Mar? A new independent bookstore? Even the cute little shops downtown seemed trendier than I remembered.

Rodeo City BBQ was closed--plus after my all-you-can-eat rib night experiences there I think I've had enough fo that for awhile. We dined at the fine Campus-U-Tot'em.


And don't forget this "totem pole." I'm pretty sure it's offensive to, like, everyone.


No visit to Ellensburg is complete without a vist to Dick & Jane's Spot, better known as "The Art House." This artist coule decided years ago to start decorating their house for others to enjoy and it's become sort of a famous thing.


(Notice that bright Eastern Washington sun! Ahhhh...)





One of the things I was most excited for during this trip to Ellensburg was seeing CWU again. Since I've left they've built a new student union/cafeteria/gym building that's rumored to be super fancy. It is! I didn't take many pictures because they couldn't begin to live up to the brochures, but here's the new "food court" area that replaces East:


The food court includes Mexican, Asian, pizza, salads, pasta, sandwhiches AND the regular greasy stuff. Don't worry smoothie-lovers, there's an entirely seperate smoothy stand over by the fireplace/lounge area.

I didn't get a picture of the new "West" because it was closed and I got kicked out. It's plainer but still super fancy.

Okay, so this next picture might not make much sense to most of you, but this is a shot of the new SUB looking from Barto lawn. They demolished the old dining hall to build the SUB, and it's weird that everything else looks so familar but then the dining hall is just gone and replaced by this alien.


Overall, Central seems to have come into some money since we graduated. Things have been tidied up, landscaping has been done, and it definitely shows a lot nicer than it did "back in the day." But just to show you that it's still the same old CWU...



This exact same sign has been over the drinking fountain in the L&L (English) building since I started at Central. Stay classy, CWU.

From Ellensburg we headed west on I-90. We stopped at the Thorp fruit stand for part 2 1/2 of our road trip. To be fair, we passed plenty of other fruitstands up by Cashmere earlier in the day, but it was too hot to leave fruit in the car and I wanted to bring something home to show for my troubles. We bought nectarines, cherries and those fabulous donut peaches that are hideously expensive over here and only $1.29 a pound there.

I neglected to take a picture of the peaches, but I did take a picture of this classy sign:


It's hanging outside the MEN'S room. Ha.

And finally we come to Roslyn. Both of us are fans of Northern Exposure, and Roslyn was used in the filming of the show (although it's set in Cicily, Alaska).

Here's the famous Roslyn Cafe sign (because the show is set in Cicily, they say "a hippie came through town and painted that sign, but he was so high he forgot the 's' in Roslyn's")



And here's what the inventive citizens of Roslyn have done with one of those old payphone-from-the-car things.


(it's hard to see in the shadow, but there's an old phone mounted there. It doesn't work... I checked.)

And with that, we pointed our Subaru homeward, content with our day's explorations...