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

Tourists in San Francisco

Here is an account of some more of the site-seeing we did while Mark was visiting...

Went to Fisherman’s wharf area; for you literary-types, Carolyn was excited to see another literary landmark (Cannery row, or what used to be Cannery Row)

We had lunch overlooking the wharves

here's a better picture of those lovely boats outside

On Saturday we drove across the Golden Gate bridge and toured Marin county. Went to Muir beach. Here is a view from Muir beach overlook – beautiful!

Also in Marin county is Muir woods, for you nature-types, a rare stand of old-world redwoods, towering up to the sky!

We also found the town of Bolinas, a hippie town that keeps tearing down signs to the village so it doesn’t get overrun with tourists; little did they know we were on the hunt for some good whole grain organic treats and fair trade coffee. Here is the sign that exists at the crossroads just outside of town.

It was actually pretty busy in town, perhaps in part due to an opening for a photography exhibit , which was pretty cool  -- for you artsie types, the photographer’s name was, I believe,Troy Paiva -- The pictures were all taken at night just by keeping the aperture open for awhile, though the shots looked like they were photoshopped to create the strange lighting effects – they seemed to all be taken on route 66; that is American old-highway ghost-towny shots (you know the type....)

And our final tourist destination... (uh..., for you criminal-types?) Alcatraz! Not because of anything we did; we chose to go there. There is an audiotour that you do to take you through the grounds and the cellblocks – see Carolyn with headphones

I don’t know why I look so inappropriately happy in the Alcatraz cellblock. In any case... the tour is excellent, and is narrated by former inmates and employees, adding to the power of it. Here is a picture of the ruins of the warden’s house

Here is Tony in the recreation yard, practicing his golf swing; also inappropriate....

On the boat that goes to the island where the prison is, you get a great view of the San Francisco skyline.

And here is a look at Alcatraz itself as we made our escape on the boat back to downtown.

So that is pretty much our San Francisco days; tomorrow is our last day here, and Saturday we leave for our trip up the Oregon/Washington coast on our way to Victoria, BC.

I imagine we will post a blog or two during our road trip, so stay tuned...

Love to all, C & T

San Francisco update

Greetings again from San Francisco, one of the coolest cities around. Here are some pics of our recent activities...

Tony was at a conference downtown for a few days, and we met down there one evening and went to the famous (well, at least if you are into the Beat poets) City Lights bookstore, which is right near Jack Kerouac alley – I believe Kerouac wrote On the Road in an apartment down the alley.

Speaking of the alternative kind of scene, we went to an evening of storytelling one night. Every month the two coordinators of this story-telling performance series get together a very eclectic group of people (some famous, some regular average people, some in between) to each tell a 15-min personal story on a common theme – they prepare but they have to tell the story with no notes. The night we went, there was an ex-ballerina, a subway train driver, a well known journalist, an ex-baseball player, a middle-aged woman who likes to skate board, and a Howard Cosell impersonator all telling stories related to sports. It was funny and fascinating. After the intermission, they asked if any audience members would like to get up and tell their own 3-min story, and, of course, Tony volunteered and got up to the mic in front of all those people and told his story about how the Tiger Woods scandal ruined his golf-fantasy life (for those who haven’t heard this story, I’m sure you will at some point). The audience loved it. Here’s Tony outside the Verdi Club where the story-telling evening was held.

Also on the story-telling front, we went to the Opera House downtown and saw David Sedaris one night, who read some stories from his new book, excerpts from his “diary”, and answered questions from the audience (he then had the energy to sign books for hours, I’m sure, after the performance).  It was really delightful and funny. No pictures were taken, so you will have to take our word for it

On the homefront, we work in cafes, the lovely Noe Valley public library, and a lot at home. See below our patio from above

And the stairs that go up to the house on the west side (on the east side is the road up to the house).

That is Mark (Carolyn’s brother) and Carolyn going up the stairs – ascendez!

On that note, Mark visited us over the Easter holiday and we took that opportunity to do some daytime site-seeing that we had been saving up.

We walked to the Haight-Ashbury area and soaked in the neighbourhood.

Very colourful storefronts

 

Unusual bookstores

 

Greatest music store ever

We also went to Marin County, Fisherman’s Wharf and Alcatraz – pics to come in the next blog (are you excited?)

Hope everyone is well!