Digital Nomad: The Seattle Years

By Mike Huber

I wasn’t thrilled the first few months in Seattle after having moved from Victoria.  The timing of my move didn’t help since it was at the end of summer when the sun almost totally gives way to the gloomy gray clouds.  It wasn’t so much that it rained there but you absolutely could feel less energy around you due to a serious lack of vitamin D in everyone’s system. Nonetheless, I was here and had signed a one-year lease in a high rise in the Seattle neighborhood of Belltown, so I had to make the best of it.

It didn’t take too long to feel closed in living in the city.  Seattle isn’t a big city but what was missing is the nature that had engulfed and spoken to me over the past year.  My “office,” which I went in maybe once every few weeks to meet the team for coffee or happy hour, was in Bellevue.  I am usually not one to badmouth areas, but instead I like to look at the positive side and its attributes. In Bellevue I couldn’t find any.  It was a suburban plastic city with nothing but cookie cutter restaurants and bars.  It was like the Truman show, but with a “keep up with the Jones” mentality.  Everyone had expensive cars and would even move parking spaces to flaunt the material items they had become slaves to.  When asking them what they did on the weekend it usually entailed going to Costco and dinner at a Chili’s or Cheesecake Factory to wrap up a day at the mall.

Thankfully, I rode my Ducati Monster M1100 out from Maine.  This became the best way to leave the beaten path and explore the state of Washington, and boy did I explore it.  It was a quick learning curve to find incredible roads and remote camping areas that most people not only didn’t dare to explore (there were no Chili’s out on the Olympic Peninsula).  This was fine with me.

Once again, every weekend was like a vacation for me as I explored Washington.  When I went into the office my peers would gather to hear about where I went over the weekend and what I had experienced.  There were numerous challenging hikes, remote beach camping on the Olympic Peninsula, motorcycle rides through the Cascades, numerous volcanos, and countless treasures I discovered by talking to fellow hikers and riders.  I was starting to love Washington.  The diversity inspired me to explore the region and it was a rare weekend when I stayed in Seattle.

It didn’t take long before I got over the fear of city life, built a circle of great friends, and became fully acclimated to living in Belltown.  The weekends involved traveling through the state or up to Vancouver, BC and weekdays I spent in coffee shops and bars with my new friends. Life became pretty routine (which was odd for me), but it was enjoyable.

One of the cooler things I loved about Seattle is how dog friendly of a city it is.  For years they had a dog that rode the city bus with a bus pass to the local dog park.  Also, dogs are not only allowed in most bars but actually sit at the bar and the bartender provides a water dish and treats for them.  I have been in bars where at times there are more dogs than people.  This just added to my feelings for this city.

Although after almost three years living in the Seattle area and exploring most of its secrets, there were a few moments that told me it was time to return to my nomadic lifestyle.  One was during a Seattle Seahawks playoff game.  It was on TV and I went out on my tiny balcony to get some air, I looked around at all the high-rise apartments next to me and EVERY television was on the same channel watching the same thing. It was a scene out of George Orwell’s 1984.  It freaked me out and that was one of the seeds nudging me to move on.  The other was the gray skies. I was beginning to become depressed from lack of vitamin D and no matter how many supplements I took I could feel I was sinking into a depressive abyss. My parents, always ones to come up with creative solutions (that’s where I get it from) sent me a mood light for Christmas. It didn’t help.

That one final Seattle winter only provided the city with 20 hours of sun from mid-October until May.  I decided to take action.  I threw the mood light in the trash and devised a plan to leave Seattle and spend a month in Montana.  Little did I know that this decision would morph into a series of life changing events.

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