Ruby's beach
One year's good
Mount Rainier
Pikes street market
Have been wanting to visit Seattle for long. Not because the terrible hollywood movie "sleepless in seattle", however.
Heard of Seattle for its unique culture of the city: most gay friendly city in the US, closeness to Canada and another great city Vancouver, raining and damp climate, Microsoft and boeing, Starbucks,etc. The recent watch of Key Burns 's National park series film brought up my curiosity of the Mt. Rainier NP (the 5th NP in the US) and Olympic NP.
Pre-trip research and reservations:
Book flights to seattle with a round trip ticket only costing 160 bucks each.
Two nights stay in Six avenue inn, downtown seattle.
George went get city and state maps from AAA.
Thrifty rental car reservation for the whole trip at the airport.
Reality:
The frontier flight was delayed so when we got to seattle it was after 1 am. Thrifty car rental place at the airport was closed. We took the bus to the closest thrifty car rental place and got a red PT cruiser. After we got the room in 6th avenue inn, it was 2 am already.
Next day we walked to Pikes street market - not as many people since it was too early, But a restaurant inside has long lines waiting, as well as flower vendors around everywhere - the flowers are beautiful and cheap - I really love sun flowers they got. The vendors are mostly asian. I would get one everyday if I live there. There are several seafood stores and the vendors are very friendly in getting customers look at their seafood stuff. They usually have this kind of flying fish show every so often. We also saw the first ever starbucks store. We walked passing the market and went to the waterfront and got to Pier 66. Nice view. Stopped at tully's coffeeshop for coffee. The walk in downtown is nice, a lot of people.
Afternoon we went to Smith's tower, the old highest building in the city. (now the highest is Columbia tower) The area is unique at there is a big historic underground area. There is a tour but we don't have enough time for that. After that we went to the Klondike gold rush - national historic park just 3 blocks from Smith's tower. People found gold in Canada in 1897 and everybody ran into seattle to get to go to canada for gold. What is interesting is that Canada side require all gold miners to have one year's supply (see picture) per person before they climb up the high mountains. Gold Gold Gold - there is a Chinese sayings " everybody in the world crowded, come for money. everybody in the world crowded, go for money".
Night life started with a Chinese seafood buffet at Lynwood. We had quite a bit of King crab legs and snails. Only for 13 bucks per person. I don't get it how these people make money really. We stopped by REI afterwards got a pair of sports pants for me. The entrance of REI is like a maze of forest. After a rest at the hotel, we went to two bars afterwards: The eagle and Neighbors. They are quite mediocre.
Next day we drove to Mount Rainier. It was cold. Colder and colder when we drove up. Dramatic scenes. We stopped at the Paradise visitor center. Watched a movie (forgot the name) there, it was a great film. Had lunch there too. Took a hike to the left of the mountain. very nice. quite, peaceful. We kept on that road all the way to Ohanapacosh visitor center. I called them before the trip and was told it will be closed for the season on Sunday. When we got there it was still open. The ranger gave us quite a detail about Mount St Helens National Volcanic Monument - which I came across on the state map but didn't see it over the NPS.GOV washington map. It seems we couldn't make it to there that night. We stopped at Packwood and stayed in a small motel there.
Next day we drove to Mount St helens. It was beautiful dramatic drive but very winding. Mount st helens is a volcano and erupted in 1981 and a huge trunk of the peak broke down. It was really COLD AND WINDY at windy ridge, where you can see the broken mountain, the lakes, and even the Mount rainier.
After that we drove the Olympic National Park though I-5 and route 101. Another great scenic drive - although the driver's seat was quite uncomfortable the great scene really made me feel much better. When we got to Port Angeles it was about 4 pm. Port Angeles is the most northwest coast city in the US. It was a bit like Tangier. We checked the weather forecast it was gonna rain the rest of the days. We decided to go the hurricane ridge, one of the major scenic spots of the park. It was a tough drive - I had to resist the temptation of the scenes to focus on driving. When it was getting closer to the top, the road was even a bit icy. When we got to the top, it was a big platform parking lot. The hurricane ridge was just sitting there in the cloud with peaks after peaks. They were there so elegant, stand alone, really not caring what is happening in the human world and for thousands years they were just there: cold, clear, snowy, and lonely. It shocked us.
We chose Port angeles Inn to stay for that night. It was the greatest hotel I have ever been. One of the room is all window, with the view of the coast, canadian side. On the other side is the valley of olympic mountains. We left the curtain open all night.
Next day we kept going around the park. The first stop was Elwha valley. It was cloudy with some rain showers, foggy and misty with colored leaves emerging in and out of the fog. In one of the dirt road trails, it was really an one way road - I frequently worried what if there is a car coming towards us and there weren't many turnouts for both cars passing through, plus it was so steep and winding. There are many hiking trails in the park, for example, you can hike about 14 miles from this valley to hurricane ridge. Sounds really cool but we couldn't do it. George got a cold and we didn't have that much time.
Next stop was East beach. was nice along lake crescent. Then it was Marymere Falls. The hike was only one mile so we could afford it. So many tall trees with moss around it. very peaceful.
The drive to Sol Duc hot springs was rainy. But it didn't decrease the great scenes at all. So many red leaves along the road. I think we were just lucky to chose this time to visit - obviously it was the best time to read Autumn in this area. The hot spring area used to have a big resort but burned down long time ago. When we got there just felt lucky to have some hot clam chowder soup and sit in the hot springs surrounded by many Russian people.
Next we drove to Hoh Rain forest. Again very scenic drive. In fact even the Route 101 is a great scenic drive itself. When George was taking a nap in the car, many times I had to resist the desire to wake him up to see the beautiful scenes. They are really just as good as New England autumn, if not better. The rain forest visitor center was closed for the day. We took a hike along the muddy but dramatic trails.
In my pre-trip research, I heard Ruby's beach is a good site to visit but never found it on the map. George also recalled that when he visited seattle he went to the pacific ocean beach that was very nice. We kept on driving west and finally found the first beach along 101 is the ruby's beach. It was nice - black stones, yellow sunset and white driftwood. That was a good finish of the park until I injured my ankle when walking on the driftwood.
We stayed in Econo Lodge at Hoquiam that night. We had dinner at Mexican restaurant across the street. We were the only customers. I had a margarita, jagerbomb and Corona loaded over 12 raw oysters on an ice plate.
The last day was heavy rain, I struggled to drive in the rain for two hours and stopped at Tacoma for a break. Then all the way to seattle airport. Alaska airlines coming back, it was a good service and I like their planes.
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