Black Bottle and Wallace Falls: Two thumbs up

So I have a new bar/restaurant recommendation for other Seattleites: Black Bottle. They call themselves a "gastro-tavern," and they serve mainly tapas/small-plates type of food, though their portions are definitely "shareable," as their Web site also claims. A bunch of us met up there for Marivic's surprise 30th-birthday party. They accept reservations, so we had a table for about 20 set aside for us in the back/side room. Though the room got super loud as the night went on (mostly due to its high ceilings), I really liked the place. I had this flatbread dish with cheese, roasted chicken and dried cherries that was really delish. I ordered an apple martini, and they served it to me in a slightly small martini glass, but gave me the shaker that contained the leftover alcohol (initially, I was really excited about this, but I tend to sip at drinks, so by the time I got to that extra bit, it was pretty watered down by the ice that was also in the shaker). Price-wise, I think the mixed drinks were all around $8, and the dishes seemed to range from $8 to $11. Even better -- BB is located on the corner of 1st and Vine, so it's on the outskirts of the super busy Belltown area, and parking was pretty easy. They're online at www.blackbottleseattle.com.

Sunday was a hike at Wallace Falls with Chrissy and Matt and Nicole and their adorable 10-month-old boys. It was a perfect day for this sort of outing -- clear, but damp with threatening skies (it never did rain). We all hiked together for a couple hours to the Middle Falls:

From left: me, Chrissy, Nicole, Teagan (in carrier), Matt and Korbin (in carrier).

Then Nicole, et al, had to head back down as they didn't want to tire the boys out. Chrissy and I continued on up. I think we had to go about another mile up, and it was all switchbacks (fun). Though I definitely was slow going up them, I'm proud to say I didn't stop once! So the lungs are getting in better shape, slowly but surely.

Here's the view we enjoyed once we got to the top of the falls:


We put a couple plastic bags on a damp log and sat down for some quick lunch. I say quick because about seven minutes in, Chrissy saw a large (10-12-person?) group on a log below us start packing up, and she was worried we'd get stuck behind them on the way down (she had a bit of a time constraint to meet her family for her brother's birthday outing). So I crammed everything back into my pack, and finished up my cherries as we trekked down, spitting out seeds on either side of the path along the way. Our shoes and pants' hems were pretty muddy by the time we got to the car, but all in all, another great outing.