Do America

By day 6 of the Seattle/Oregon trip I had Mark Knoftler's “Do America” on continuous play. It seemed like we were going from place to place, hitting the high/tourist spots and with the newly invented BBB scale  I felt like I had a good feel for three new areas.

Ashland, Oregon is a full-on BBB triple threat!  With the Standing Stone and Caldera micro brew pubs less than three blocks from each other, the Bloomsbury independent bookstore and bikes, from sleek racing to around-town cruisers, almost as prevalent as pedestrians it's a beautiful thing. Added to all that is a great used book store, fantastic hiking, fruit -  luscious pears, plums, blackberries, etc, growing everywhere like weeds, and  friendly people,and its a town I could really spend some time in.

Jacksonville, 7 miles East of Ashland, looks good at first sight. Neat, tidy 19th century houses, large sidewalks, and a decent coffee shop. There are a number of bikes in town but you soon notice they are only riding through town. There's neither a bike shop, nor brew pub.  Out of 15 different shops, not a single bookstore, used or otherwise, and while the restaurants offer locally grown food, their selection of Oregon beers was limited. A very sad, missed opportunity for a town.

And then there is Seattle, a town once noted for its impressive coffee shop penetration, but now has even more sushi restaurants.  Tourist traffic has also increased in the last decade and the big independent bookstore recently moved from Pioneer Square, North and up to the Capital Hill district. It is a well-stocked, vibrant, if singular store.

Bikes, and bike lanes are everywhere in Seattle - as is a bike-friendly transit system. But somehow you get the sense that the idea is to get bikes in and out of, not around town. Seattle boasts a great outdoor recreation ethic, but all that recreation happens outside of Seattle. It's like a commuter city, a city where everyone lives and the commuting it to the mountains, rivers, and ocean around them.

And the beer? Hmmm. I really can't recall anything remarkable about the beer selection in the restaurants, and didn't see a brewery although google maps does show one, it too is in the Capital Hill district, not Seattle proper.

All in all, I guess I too view Seattle as a commuter town. A decent place to go to Do America and find other BBB towns like Ashland.