I spent June 25-28 with Diana and her husband Sean in Santa Clara, California. As you could see from my map on yesterday's schedule, Santa Clara is part of the Bay Area. I didn't know much about California's geography until I drove around the state, so I'll lay out for you what I learned: The Bay Area refers to a—surprise!—bay, and around the bay are different cities. San Francisco is the most famous, but San Jose and Santa Clara and Oakland and lots of others are around there. 

So basically, I spent the last few days in the San Francisco area. And now, to give you another new brand of sum-reporting on a shadow spot, we'll tour my time with Diana through pictures!

I know I talked about donuts earlier this week (and hopefully established that I don't actually eat them all that often); the Portland donut scene came up at dinner with Sean and Diana Sunday night when I got there, and they decided to take me to their local fav for Monday breakfast: Stan's Donut Shop. 

Diana works for a company that supplies educators with online courses. She's an implementation manager, so she resolves technical and organizational issues for the users of these classes. She was working with some users in Napa on Monday, so we drove an hour north, grabbed lunch, and went to the meeting. 

We went on lots of walks around the neighborhood by their apartment complex. Here's a tree that's huge and cool.

And from another walk, here's another tree, casually growing lemons.

Diana and Sean cooked dinner each night. My fav was brussel sprouts on Monday night, what's new, but here's another good one from Tuesday—stuffed sweet potatoes.

On Tuesday we both worked—she on her job stuff, me on Summer Shadow stuff (did you see the new archive at the top for different locations' posts! & do ya follow @thesummershadow on Insta?)—went on more walks, washed the dog, went to Costco—a classic American day!

I liked hearing about Diana's different places she'd worked. She worked after undergrad, then went to grad school, and has held three or four different professional jobs since then. It was cool to, after living with her for a few days, learn her thoughts and her personality—and then think about how her strengths and attributes related to different jobs she'd told me about having.

And—so generally that it's almost unhelpful—I really just liked hearing what Diana thought about things. Her tattoos, the way she met her husband, life in California, anything. I learned so much, and I've already started writing about it for the ??? (=short story, book, articles, you tell me). 

So ya. Yay, Diana! Report on my days in LA comin soon!

I made it to Cali! Here's yesterday's schedule, along with a side shot of Dazzle, who wishes she was the only one in the picture.

I went to Seattle, taking a quick pit stop between Sisters, Oregon and Bay Area, California. Okay fine, it's not actually between those places, but it was a high priority stop, so I made it happen. It was amazing. I stayed with Taylor-Marie and got to see Scott and soaked up every second. 

I also ate a croissant that changed my life. I would tell you how many I had but you wouldn't believe that I actually cared about eating in moderation if I did, but I do, and this croissant could easily become a food group for me if I lived in Seattle. So let's be glad that's not a thing. Yet! My family will vouch, though, that I've talked about nothing else since I ate this golden treasure. Here's a picture—the twice-baked chocolate croissant from Bakery Nouveau. ABSOLUTE GAME CHANGER and the only thing worthy of all caps on this sleek, modern, try-hard blog.

Its formal, reserved appearance

A few bites in. The best moment of my life maybe? (being dramatic maybe?)

I rode a ferry, of course (apparently ferries are an "of course" in Seattle, fun fact) and drank bubble tea. And Taylor-Marie took me to a Mariners game, and Scott took me all around his campus. 

Me on the front of the ferry, wondering what even is Rose w/o Jack? [jk, she's a strong, independent female who is smart enough to climb onto a door or whatever and not drown, even when Celine Dion makes it sound like ur supposed to let urself sink into the depths of rly cold h2o, go rose, you rose to the occasion & didn't jack it up hahaha]

There were a bunch of other wonderful things I got to do (Seattle is *was* a top-3-maddieperkie's-world-wannabe-destinations; the other two are Vietnam and Prague), but the only other one I'll mention for now was another thing I wanted to do forever. (The other "thing I wanted to do forever," references that croissant, I'm realizing as I type. Apparently I didn't know it till I put it in my mouth.)

I could spend twenty minutes explaining the role of these books in my life, but we'll leave that for another post. Suffice it to say that one of the chapters I read six years ago made me want to visit Puget Sound (the name of the bay that Seattle sits on) so badly and I finally got to do it and I took Betsy and Tacy with me. That sounds weird. Well anyway I did and I sat and had a picnic and read the Puget Sound chapter from the books and meditated on Psalm 34 and almost got attacked by a raccoon like in Elf. But we'll save that for another blog post. 

Cali post next! Yay! Also, s/o to Tucker + the Freeland fam for letting me crash at their place in Napa Saturday night, never have I been so happy to be around friends/have a fluffy bed (It was post-twelve-hour drive ahhhh). And Allison Hall, who emailed me (at my official-y email ayee) to tell me that she reads my blog, which was supremely encouraging because I find it safe to assume that Rah and Mama are pretty much the only people who read it. So thanks for, as they say, "tightening the feedback loop!" (Do people actually say that? Well idk but apparently I do). Bless u frandsss.