My Methow — The Brand Next Door

I just love birthdays, and I love spoiling Raz for his. This year, I plotted to take him to the Rolling Huts near Winthrop, in north/central/eastern Washington. I planned the adventure months before we actually rolled out (see what I did there?) and had so much fun teasing him about it beforehand.

The huts were just as cute as you'd imagine, but in like a totally cool and architectural way, because, you know, we're hipster and Seattle like that. It was a little bit of a hike getting to them from Seattle since the scenic highway people usually take to them was still closed for the winter.

Regardless! We made it and they were fantastic. We had a little kitchenette, and I got us breakfast package with pastries through the Huts' main office. You don't have to check in or out with any humans, which is another HUGE plus for those of us on the introverts spectrum.

Solitudeeee. I let Raz open a gift I helped my mom pick out for him so we could play it by the fire—a travel poker kit. We're working on beating the dealer at Blackjack, so we played cards and Raz lost first and we read books and chatted and drank wine and put logs on the fire and looked at the snow and felt very cozy.

The only thing that was slightly scary was the bathroom situation. There is a very nice outhouse attached to every hut, which is something I'm pretty used to. HOWEVER, there is no light in it, and I was terrified I would drop my cell phone into the deep Honey Bucket abyss while I was using its flash light, but thankfully I keep a pretty white knuckle grip on the thing, so we all survived. Showers are in another building very close by, which is somewhat less than ideal for divas, but I'm trying to be more outdoorsy, so I sucked it up and put on some shower shoes and tried to embrace it for the adventure it was.

In spite of our lack of access to indoor plumbing in the snow, the place was fantastically beautiful and we stared and stared. Raz's birthday is on the first day of spring, which coincides with this semi-weird winter to spring weather transition. The great part about that is I find us fun little places to see during what is usually the off-season. We have had these killer birthday adventures in epic places mostly to ourselves! Talk about Very Important Popas.

We bummed around all over the Methow Valley, taking in the views and making lots of photos. Of all the places we've visited the past few years, this is one we can't stop talking about. We're already plotting cabin-y New Year celebrations and seeing it at some point in the summer months.

We're headed to Missoula tonight for another weekend of adventure and I can't wait to see that Big Sky. We'll come back with lots of memories and maybe a new pair of cowboots. I'll try to write about it faster than I did this.

Happy belated public birthday, bro guy! I love adventuring with you. Here's to plotting for next year and continuing to discover the best of the west.