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Seattle, Olympic National Park and Victoria, B.C.

March 19-23, 2002

My wife and I just got back in from Seattle this morning. We flew all night with a really chatty couple behind us who must have never flown before. It was a wonderful, albeit short, trip, and I will probably have some minor form of jet lag for the next few days! We spent one day and night in Seattle, then went to Port Angeles, the gateway to Olympic National Park, on the Juan de Fuca Straight and spent three days there. Of the three days that we were in Port Angeles, we spent one day relaxing and watching the waves from our bay view room. The next day, Thursday, we drove along the coast to Rialto Beach. Rialto and its sister beaches are the last natural, undeveloped, beaches in the continental U.S. There "stacks" are really fantastic.

On Friday, we took the two hour ferry ride 22 miles due north to the beautiful port town of Victoria, British Columbia. And then we took the two hour ferry back just in time to grab some seafood bisque at the Crab House restaurant and still catch the rerun of Frasier at 6:30 pm.

On Saturday, we went in to Olympic National Park up to Hurrican Ridge. I spent two hour skiing and realizing how out of practice I was. And then we spent the rest of the day driving to Seattle to get to the airport. The highlight of the trip back was the ferry ride from Kingston to Edmonds! That ferry was huge. It's a RORO ferry, which meant that we were able to drive on, get out and enjoy 25 minutes on the immense passenger deck, and then return to our car to drive off.

Here are some of the photos of the trip....

Pike Place Market has been open continuously longer than any other farmer's market in the US. It was built in 1907, and almost shut down, demolished and replaced with condominiums in the 1970s.

One of the beatiful flower vendors... These are just some of the flowers. There were quite a few stalls with endless quantities of flowers. All of the very nice ladies looked like they were from a former Soviet Republic. I gave this lady my e-mail address and asked her to send me an e-mail so that I could send her the photo.

In the evening, we got together with our dear friend Anya Podowitz, who just moved out to Seattle in January.

On Wednesday, we left Seattle and headed out toward Port Angeles and Olympic National Park. On the way, we passed the port of Bremerton, which is home to much of the moth-balled fleet. This is one of the three aircraft carriers (CV 61, CV 62 Independence and the other one looked older, but I'm not sure of its penant number) that dwarfed the parking lot outside of the secured area. I had hoped to see some of the Iowa class BBs, but no such luck.

We made it to Port Angeles later in the day, and just relaxed in our hotel room at the Red Lion Hotel. Our hotel, the Red Lion, was along the water at the center of the waterfront.

The next day, we headed out from the hotel and drove west and then south to Rialto Beach, at the extreme north-west corner of the country. Rialto Beach and other beaches in the area are the last natural beaches in the continental USA. They are famous for their stacks (the large island structures in the background).

What was incredibly impressive was the way that wood bits and huge trees have just been thrown up on to the beach and then sanded down by repeated weathering from the waves. Some were six to eight feet wide! The vertical things that look like trees are actually branches off of the trunk.

Here is another smashed tree trunk. There are warnings all over the place that these trees can kill when they are driven up onto the beach with great violence.

And yet some more. The photo doesn't do justice to the absurdly rust-red color of the trunk that dominates the photos.

I really like abstractions. The water running back out to sea grabbed my attention... I am easily entertained! :)

... But then the water came right back and almost soaked my camera bag, lying on the beach, moments later. That wouldn't have been good, for I still had two other cameras in the camera bag.

The variety of colors of the smooth pebbles is fascinating. But the black, coarse salt-rock textured sand underneath has even more detail, even if it is dominated by black. It appears to be volcanic or ignious in nature, which is surprising since we are at the ocean, but not so since we are along the Pacific Rim.

Serene beauty...

Olympic National Park also has the only rain forests in the Contental USA. Here is just a sample which we saw while exiting Rialto Beach.

We passed Lake Crescent both on the way to Rialto Beach and on the way back. It reminded us of Lake Lucerne in Switzerland.

On Friday, we left Port Angeles for a day-trip to Victoria, British Columbia. It's just 22 miles away by ferry, though those 22 miles take almost 2 hours.

Views of the coastline.

Arriving in Victoria. See http://www.city.victoria.bc.ca/common/index.shtml to learn more about Victoria.

The beautiful legislative buildings.

View of the harbor. It was overcast.

Detail of one of the buildings.

According to the Victoria web site, "In a survey conducted by Conde Nast Traveller magazine, Victoria was judged to be one of the world's best cities, topping the list in the category of environment and ambience." We quickly understood why. The site also tells us that "In the twentieth century, Victoria evolved primarily as a city of government, retirement and tourism. The City remains, however, Canada's western naval base and home to a major fishing fleet."

Detail from a store-front window.

... and another store front.

Brunch at the Pankoeken Haus, which serves Dutch style pancakes. They're in between a pancake and a crepe in thickness and in sweetness. They weren't the crepes which I had a hankering for, but they were kind of close. In any case, it ended up being well too much to eat. But it was good.

Another store front image.

The spectacular Legislative Building from across the harbor. It is very reminiscent of the Victoria Memorial in Calcutta except for that one is built out of marble. This building might as well be the Victoria Memorial as well since it has her statue in front and the town bears her name. The architect who designed this was only 25 years old. We had a shining career and is largely responsible for the architectural beauty of Victoria. I forget his name. Anyway, he eventually got caught up in a scandal (as do all of the greats?) in his 50s by divorcing his wife and marrying someone in her 20s. Later, she and her lover murdered him.

Finally it was time to start heading back. Here is the Empress Hotel from our ferry. This magnificent hotel, with its Franco-Anglo-Canadian look, reminded me of Chateau Frontenac at the other end of Canada, in Quebec. It's funny. We were worried about crossing over into Canada with only our driver's licenses. So we had no problems getting into Victoria; they didn't hassle us on the way there. But American immigration hassled me on the way back since I was born in Montreal. Blah!

On Saturday, it was time to check out. We had lots of bread and other food, such as french fries, a baked potato and more to throw out. Rather than have the cleaning crew schlep extra weight, we decided to feed the audience of birds which serenaded us outside of our hotel room for three days. Three of the birds are on their way up for French bread.

We actually went to Hurrican Ridge in Olympic National Park on Saturday around noon, after checking out of the hotel. I skiied rather poorly for two hours, falling down four times on one of the diamond slopes. I really didn't like the rope tows or the other tows either. At 3 pm we left and headed to Seattle. We took the ferry from Kingston to Edmonds.

This view is as we were arriving in Edmonds. The ferry was massive, and we could barely feel any movement. But the ferry moved along at a brisk clip. The inside was huge, with seating for several hundred people at a minimum. There was room for six or seven rows of cars with a total of probably around 50 to 70 vehicles total. Inside, on the passenger deck, there is a small cafetaria that serves all kinds of food including beer and wine. I wish that we had taken this ferry to begin with rather than only on the way back. It only cost us $8 to ferry the car and for both of us too. I think that it is more expensive going away from Seattle than too Seattle. The time to cross ends up being the same as driving the long way around, but this is much more relaxing and enjoyable.

And another view...

This was the BEST of the three photos of the famous Seattle Needle that I shot with the camcorder. It probably would have shot a crisper photo had I not set the camcorder to Low Light.

Sunday morning at 5:30 am, back in Atlanta after five days on the road. The world's busiest airport is busy even at this time on a Sunday morning.

... but it seems pretty quiet on the outside. Everyone is probably getting dropped off at the lower passenger drop off area now that everything has changed since September 11 of last year.

And moments later, the sun starts to come up. We'll head home to sleep!

Visit the USA Overview Yellowstone National Park	Monument Valley Seattle Bert's Pumpkin Patch	Canyon de Chelley RV in Alaska RV Tips	Chattanooga Ideas Chattanooga Photos Amicolola Falls, GA.