Washington state and Seattle

From Oregon, we continued to travel north to Washington.  One of the highlights of the state is Olympic National Park, which contains the Olympic mountains and some beautiful glacier-fed lakes. We considered camping but this early in the season (early May) the nights would have been very cold.  

So, instead, we stayed at a lovely and comfy lodge.  Here I (Tony) am basking in a glacial lake (Crescent Lake) at the lodge.  Can you guess how long I stayed in the water, even with my wet suit on?

Carolyn is surveying Cresent lake after an evening hike  

There are natural hot springs in the park.  To get there, you need to drive for about half an hour up a fairly steep lane, then hike for another 45 minutes. As you might expect, given the journey to get there, along with the time of year, the springs were mostly deserted.  All that was missing was a glass of wine.     

On the way up to the Springs, we stopped at a view point overlooking an azure-coloured lake.  

Here are some of the peaks of the Olympic mountains on the way up to Hurricane Ridge, an amazing destination at the top of one of the mountains. It affords a wonderful view of  the range.

At the top of Hurricane Ridge, we walked on one of the roads servicing the lookout.  They had had so much snow this winter, the banks of road were about 20 feet tall.

On to Seattle...  One of the first stops was the famous Space Needle.  Although it may seem to be only twice as tall as Carolyn, it is somewhat taller and affords a great view of the city.  

 Clear skies did not hurt either in a city known for its rain.  

An outdoor sculpture park.  The sculptures are in brown, not blue.  

The harbour front.  Seattle is a pretty city, and we were fortunate to have a couple of sunny days to explore it.  

 Next is our return to Canada (starting in Victoria) after about 5 months away in the U. S.  Onward! Till then,  C & T    

Portland and the remainder of the Oregon coast

On our coastal tour north, we took a bit of side trip to Portland, Oregon.  It is a very livable, comfortable, funky, and a bit of an odd city.  One of their slogans/creeds is "keep Portland weird."

We stayed there for a weekend, and Mark, Carolyn's brother, came down from Victoria and toured the city with us.

The Pacific Northwest, including Portland, is well known for its coffee.  Here are a couple of tourists sampling the fare at an outdoor food and beverage market.  

We spent some time on Saturday walking around the city.  Along with the food market above, we went to the largest bookstore in U.S. (Powell's--sorry no pictures) and then took in another outdoor market.  This one was a craft and arts market.

Portland has a local tradition in their movie theatres of selling beer and pizza, which you can consume while you watch the movie.   

We did just that ...very civilized.  Cheers!

After Portland, we returned to the Oregon coast, and visited Cannon Beach, a lovely spot for lunch or just sightseeing.

In fact, one the rock outcroppings on Cannon beach is one of the most photographed spots on the Oregon coast, so we took our share of pictures here too.

A view of Cannon beach view from above.  

The Oregon coast reminded us of the Great Ocean Road between Melbourne and Adelaide in Australia: often rugged, often stunningly beautiful.  Most days on our trip along the coast were sunny, so we think Oregon was trying to show off.  It certainly did that well...

More to come on Washington...  

Coastal Tour, Part II

And, a continuation of the last blog....

In Southern Oregon  is the Oregon Dunes National recreation area – we walked on a “trail” there through the dunes – it is like walking on another planet, sand going on and on, and on, eventually to the ocean

Tony musing about the one lonely plant

Tony practicing his bunker shots

North of Florence on the Oregon coast is a great spot for seeing sea lions

And views of the coast from Cape Perpetua

There are also some pretty cool tidal pool areas. These ones are at Yaquina Head, near Newport, Oregon

Also at Yaquina Head are sea bird colonies. We wondered what the dots were all over these rocks, then got closer and saw that they were very densely packed seabirds! (Common Murres, to be exact)

While in Newport, we stayed in a very cool inn overlooking the water. Each room was named after and decorated in the theme of an author. We opted out of the Dr. Seuss room as we thought it would give us nightmares

We opted for the much more muted colours of the Lincoln Steffens room (he was  a journalist in the early 1900s). Unfortunately, the Tolkien room was booked, so we couldn't get a look!

And, the last picture in this blog... this is from the lovely scenic drive in Oregon called the "Three Capes Loop". The picture is of the first Cape in the drive... Cape Kiwanda

After these coastal areas of Oregon, we headed inland to Portland for the weekend. More on that in the next blog!

Bye for now....

C & T

Coastal Tour, Part I

Hi everyone,

It’s been awhile! We have spent the last 2 weeks driving up through northern California, Oregon, and Washington, finally landing in Victoria, BC (back in Canada!), where we are now living in a condo downtown until mid-June.

Here is one set of a couple of sets of pics from our drive up the coast, which was stunning!

Okay, these first two are back in San Francisco (I know, that is soooo April!); this is Molly, the cat that came with the house we were staying in, curled up in Tony’s suitcase while he was packing; she apparently wanted to come with us.

And our last shot of San Francisco as we drove out of town!

The first major site in Northern California was the giant redwoods

Some of which you could drive thru (this was actually one of the smaller drive-thru trees)

This shot is from an area in Redwood National Park called Fern Canyon, there are walls of fern and a lovely stream to walk up (given waterproof hiking boots, and a change of socks in the car); they shot parts of Jurassic Park here

Also part of the coastal drive, lovely beaches full of drift wood; Carolyn felt at peace and liked to do her yoga there

Tony felt so at peace he wanted to live there

Another frequent site all along the pacific northwest coast in the US, drive thru espresso huts; here is one of our faves (not sure why....)

Here are a few shots of typical Northern California/Oregon coastline

More to come from our coastal tour in the next few days

Love to all!

C & T