Get Out: Of Town. No, Seriously

Our best shot of unincorporated Snohomish County

It was getting urgent. We knew it was high time to abandon the too-familiar streets of Seattle in pursuit of sanctuary from chaotic, connected city life, or else risk losing our soul and sanity. The original plan for this weekend was to leave the state somehow--head down to Portland, or up to B.C. We informed our checking account of the plan and it began to sqwak in protest, so Plan B was to stay at the St. Placid Benedictine convent down in Olympia for the weekend.

When even a convent in Olympia began to seem expensive (egads), Seattlest settled for a trip to the mysterious region called "unincorporated Snohomish County," also known as "our parents' house." We would take a vacation, damnit, even if that meant a weekend of sitting in our high school bedroom-turned-guest-room, noshing on Trader Joe's brie, and contemplating the tiny nature reserve just beyond the rows of strawberry plants in the back yard.

Does anyone else get antsy and irritable when they can't check their email or answer text messages? Do you have to battle waves of the crave for confirmation that the e-world still rotates on the usual axis? Seattlest probably needs more than a couple days away from the internets to decompress back to being Normal, on the level of our dear readers.

We returned from our mini-vacation on Sunday just in time to grab Ezell's and head to Madison Beach for some lazy time in the sun. Of course, we had to spend some energy swatting away our companions' talk of End Times and Rising Prices, but we tried our damnedest to emulate the sun-baked poodle near our blanket and live fully in the moment. And this morning, the world seems brighter.

It's probably not only that the sun is still shining, or that we're a little sunburned. We just think everyone needs to get out once in awhile, to a place where fewer people know your name and emotions run at a lower grade of intensity.

Otherwise, you might end up like this in a few years.