North by Northwest

In a couple of weeks, Becky and I (no kids!) will be heading out to the Pacific Northwest for a vacation filled with hiking, kayaking, and sightseeing.  We will hike both Mt. Rainer and Mt. Saint Helens and hope, also, to visit the original Starbucks in Seattle.  Of course, we hope to have coffee there.  With my visit to Oregon and Washington states, I will have also visited every state in my lifetime (except for Alaska).

In preparation for this trip, I've been reading travel guides to the Northwest, but have found most of these guides to be heavily slanted to the accommodation and restaurant aspects of vacationing.  Perhaps I need a hikers or kayakers guide.

This is my problem with travel books.  I tend to slide past the food and accommodations sections.  After all, the way I figure it, we can always sleep in the rental car if there is no vacancy.  Jesus would understand.  And as for food . . . when have Americans EVER gone without stuffing their faces?  There are more places to eat than ever before, and I wouldn't be surprised if someone has opened a wiener stand on the top of Mt. Rainer.  Heck, I wouldn't be surprised to see Anthony Wiener up there! 

Being alone with my wife for two weeks, I also have other plans for the evenings together.  I won't get into it here, but I'm just hoping we find accommodations with ample room so I can try out some of the nifty old-folks moves I've been reading about in Woman's Day and Old Guys Like Us magazines.  And I hear that volcanic locations like Mt. Saint Helen's can be quite romantic, especially if there is enough free-floating ash in the air.

Volcanic mountains are also legendary for sacrificing virgins.  But that's why my wife wants to hike there first.  She doesn't have a thing to worry about.