10 years ago this weekend - my first dose of Seattle misery

SEATTLE, Washington - In November 1998 I was living in Boise and decided to come to Seattle for the first time, to visit a friend in Redmond. I started the seven-hour drive early Thanksgiving morning, my first journey into the Pacific time zone.

Our first order of business was to find a place to eat Thanksgiving dinner. He was a vegetarian, not much more familiar with the area than I was, and the young internet of 1998 was not very helpful. We ended up at the Black Angus on 156th in Bellevue, where he ate a potato and I had a full meal. (Nowadays, I know that the way to find a bunch of open restaurants on Thanksgiving is to head to the International District).

The next day I started exploring Seattle. If you've been around you probably remember that day - a bus plunged off the Aurora Bridge after the driver was assaulted and shot. I drove across the bridge for the first time less than an hour before the incident.

My first-ever dinner in Seattle proper was at Cactus in Madison Park. I remember clawing around on the young internet for a vegetarian-friendly restaurant, and getting the primitive old 1998 internet maps to find the place.

Anyway, by early 2000 I decided Seattle would be a better place to live than Boise, and here I am.