look this way

The 101 might be over 1500 miles long, but it's not all serious driving. There's plenty of quirky points along the way. Whole towns that look as if they have been updated from a Wild West set and there's plenty of points places where there's images shouting to drivers from the roadside.

"Stop! Look at me! Come on Over!"

Okay, we did drop into this one, the 'Trees of Mystery', but almost reluctantly drove past the "Tour Thru Tree" which was off to the side of the 101, but incredibly well advertised.

Yes, we're in Redwood country now and they are giants. And I'm expecting to see more tomorrow as we head further south in Northern California.

a tsunami warning in our overnight stay information

Our car here is a four-wheel-drive sports utility vehicle, but despite others doing it, I couldn't bring myself to drive it along the beach.

It only took a couple of minutes to walk in any case, although the tide was a surprisingly long way out.

The folk in Oregon say "Don't turn your back on the sea."

I can understand why. This beach was pretty flat, and with the tide coming in, there was a large area which could be easily covered in minutes.

Later, when we were in our new beachside residence, I noticed the Tsunami warning leaflet amongst the usual information. I've been in earthquakes before, but never in a place where there's the possibility of a follow up tidal wave, so this was a whole new situation to understand.

Our ground floor room looked directly onto the evening sea and we could see the placid nature of the waves which were quoted as two-star in surf terms.

In the morning, we could enjoy the sun breaking through clouds and stroll along the almost deserted beach before heading back onto the 101.

Making a sunshine circuit of Cape Disappointment

We arrived at the old schoolhouse around dusk. This would be our last evening in Washington.

Our base was almost a gateway to an area called Cape Disappointment. It turns out that an English fur trader John Meares had named it when he was looking for a route past the Columbia's river bar. The name stuck, and later an American Captain Robert Gray found the adjoining river passage and named it Columbia, after his ship. The Lewis and Clark expedition to map the western part of the the United States also visited the promontory as part of their concluding stages.

It's an area known for shipwrecks and has two lighthouses, the second built because not all ships could see the first.


We had lucky sunny weather for this area, which has over 100 days of fog per year. Even in the time we were there, we could see the speed with which the weather could turn about, from misty fog, to bright sunshine.

For us, a journey through this state park was a delightful start to the day, before we crossed the river into Oregon.

drifting south

When they said, "Check out the driftwood," I had in my mind some twigs and maybe a few branches along the shoreline.

This is the Pacific though, and it does things on a grand scale. I'm not sure whether I'd class this driftwood as "Trees" or maybe as "Small Forest".

There's certainly a lot of it, cast through the waves on a grand scale.

We are still heading south and stopped at a few bays to admire the rugged scenery in the ahead of our last stay in Washington State, before our plans to cross the bridge into Oregon.

victorian milk shakes?

The inside of the Consulate was delightful, as were the hosts.

We had a good look around at the predominantly Victorian inspired interior.

There is a collection of lutes, some contemporary and slightly steam-punkish looking fancy hats as well as memorabelia including a discovered postage stamp sent from the Consulate to Berlin, which had somehow got lost for ages and then re-discovered.

Then a sunny evening listening to music on the seafront.

And, of course, milk shakes (don't forget to tip out the rest from the shaker) in an all-American diner.

at the consulate

The old German Consulate made an excellent and friendly evening stopover.

By now we were in Port Townsend, an area which seems to have selected elements from prior eras and created its own unique mashup of the results.

The whole character could change quickly from sunshine with everyone spilling out along the sidewalks, to a kind of mystery novel air of quiet, punctuated by a few ravens or crows screeching into the air.

I don't know, it kind of reminded me of an old movie or two...?

timber alert

I have a feeling we will be seeing more of the logger truck warning signs as we move further into the forests around here.

For the moment we are staying by the coastline, and detoured to this little town of Port Gamble, which is like something preserved from the end of the 1800s.

With all those trees around it's not surprising that most of the buildings are made of timber. And down by the water there's the remaining part of a timber transportation facility.

Across Puget Sound

We decided to take a boat from Seattle. Instead of the busy freeways, we could watch the scenery and change gear from urban to a more relaxed style.

We could now watch the Space Needle, Elliott's on the Bay and many other places we'd visited slip away as we headed across Puget Sound further to the North West.

Our plan was to make for the Olympic National Park. So as Mount Ranier bid us a distant farewell, we could see the early ranges of the largely uninhabited million acre park appearing before us.

you can hear happiness staggering on down the street, footprints dress in red

We didn't just look at the flying fishes in Seattle. Along the way we stopped off at the inscrutably named EMP, the centre created by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

With Bill Gates, they sold the original DOS operating system for PCs to IBM (and then bought QDOS because their own wasn't written). Paul did okay from it and along with the sports teams and yacht with two onboard helicopters, he set up the music and media centre.

I'd previously thought it was called the Jimi Hendrix museum, but although it features Hendrix, there's also Nirvana and a range of other musical experiences including many 'try it yourself' displays.

The guitar at the top of the post is a remnant from the famous flambéed Stratocaster at Monterey, and the albums on the wall are from Hendrix's own record collection.

The picture below is one of the famous London ones, outside Montagu Place. Hendrix rented number 24 from Ringo Starr. Paul McCartney had already installed recording gear there and its where Hendrix penned The Wind Cries Mary. After Ringo evicted Hendrix, John and Yoko moved in for a while. It's an English Heritage site nowadays, complete with blue plaque.

Oh, okay. Here's Hendrix playing a chilled Wind Cries Mary, at Monterey, on a black upside-down Stratocaster.

watch out for flying fish

I said we'd get to the place where the fish fly around.

I think the first time I visited Pike Place was before there were any Starbuck's in the UK. I remember that point tangentially because at the time it was commonplace (to my European palate) to find generally weak coffee in America.

Seattle coffee houses seemed to be running a single handed campaign to produce something tastier than the prevalent thin glass beaker coffee types.

Even then, the fish were flying, with waves of tourists outside the famous Pike Place Fish Market. This time, I managed to snap a fish in mid flight as we walked past, although it's something of a 'spot the fish' competition to actually see it.

And just along the way, the original Starbucks is still doing fine, with almost comedy length queues of people outside.

hey baby, I hear the blues a-callin' tossed salads and scrambled eggs...

Time to hit the trail for some road tripping. I've a tee-shirt that says 'Pacific One Hwy' and I think that is the basis of the plan. Along the West Coast of USA. North to South.

We're in Seattle now, after a rather pleasant flight with BA in the comfortable middle part of the plane. We had a sort of mini cabin, with those seats that turn into lie-flat beds.

There was a bit of a technical delay at take-off, but the accommodation was so enjoyable that it really didn't matter.

And then, once in Seattle, we arrived at the hotel to be greeted by those magic words..."Would you like a complementary upgrade?"

Well, what could we say? And that was before they added the rest of the sentence...

"To the Presidential Suite?"

Let's say we now have a grand piano in the room and yesterday evening we dined at the in-room banquet table.

But now it's time to go watch some fishes being thrown around.

night moves

We were on our way to the restaurant through the packed streets of Soho.

Brewer Street rammed with its mix of clubbers waiting in straggly lines, drinkers spilling across the pavement from the numerous pubs and cafes mixing with high density foot traffic,

We detoured away from the crowds onto a quieter street, just a road back from the main drag. A few taxis and rickshaws drifted through the area, famously overcrowded with its sightseeing pedestrians.

We'd left enough time, our table wasn't until 10:30pm, we could arrive as creatures of the night.