Oregon and Washington

We've made it to Portland both feeling a bit tired. Flights were smooth and uneventful although it is the first time I had flown to the states so I was happy just looking out the window at the glaciers in Greenland and watching the frozen expanse of Canada drift by for a couple of hours.

Tonight we're staying in a hotel at the airport - just managed to have some food although neither of us could face much as we're feeling a little out of sync. Tomorrow we're going to pick up a car and head to the coast and then north to Olympia National Park.

We woke up quite early due to our bodies still not being on Pacific time and after a good breakfast at the hotel picked up our rental car and headed for the coast. First stop was Cannon Beach which is a large sandy beach with some large basalt rocks and sea stacks standing on it - apparently at low tide you can just about walk to the main rock which has a large colony of sea birds and some sea lions. Since it was Saturday (and sunny) there seemed to be a fair number of people out walking on the beach.

We headed up the coast to Astoria for lunch - the first settlement west of the Mississippi that has been permanently inhabited since Lewis and Clark discovered it in 1805. We were going to go up the Astoria column for a view over the surrounding area but it was closed as they were replacing the stairwell so instead had to content ourselves with the view from the top of the hill.

Carrying on up highway 101 we took a quick detour to see the coast north of Cape Disappointment and admire the breakers rolling in on the driftwood-strewn beach. From here it took us a couple of hours to reach Lake Quinault Lodge. It was dark when we arrived so we couldn’t admire the lake from our room but the interior of the lodge is very good, lots of wood and a huge open fireplace. The food was also good - Paula had the salmon served on a cedar plank and I had a rib-eye steak. We had a chat to the couple next to us about Bhutan before deciding that we really were too tired to spend much time in front of the fire in case we fell asleep.

Awake by 7.30. We were going to go for a pre-breakfast swim in the lodge's pool but it did not open until 10am so, after confirming with the lodge that they served breakfast until 11.30, we decided to go for a walk instead. The valley was hit by a bad storm at the end of last year which meant that not all of the trails were open due to fallen trees and washed out paths but we managed to plan out a 4 mile walk into the rain forest. The forest was full of wonderful, stupidly tall trees such as Douglas Fir, Sitka Spruce, Western Red Cedar and Western Hemlock. Since we were quite early we got to see the moisture burning off in the forest which gave it a misty aspect with shafts of sunlight breaking through the trees. After breakfast we sat around on the leather sofas in front of the ridiculously large fireplace before we decided that we should get to Kalaloch.

We arrived a couple of hours early for check-in at Kalaloch so we went up to Beach 4 (all the beaches on this stretch of coast have rather unimaginative names and Beach 5 appears to be missing) and spent a while flying our new kites and exploring the rock pools which were full of large star fish and anemones. Our cabin at Kalaloch had a front row view of the pacific and lots of wood supplied for the fireplace - turned out to be a good job since the temperature dropped quite sharply after sunset. By 9pm were falling asleep again – too much sea air perhaps.

Our first rainy day – not unexpected since the Olympic peninsula apparently receives 140 inches of rain every year. We headed inland and uphill to the Hoh Rainforest where there is a visitor centre and a couple of easy trails through the woods. Again there were lots of tall trees and also some maple trees heavily draped in moss. The walks though interesting were quite short and we weren’t really equipped for the only other trail (a 17 mile hike up to the glaciers on Mt. Olympus). It continued to rain in the afternoon so, with the wind picking up, we retreated back to our cabin, lit a fire and spent the afternoon reading and drying out.

Another sunny day! After a quick walk along the beach at Kalaloch we went a short distance north to explore some of the other beaches on this stretch of coastline, starting with Ruby Beach which has a couple of sea stacks and a creek – perfect for skimming stones. It was high tide and the creek meant that we couldn’t walk a large distance along the beach so we chose to go further north to some other beaches that we had heard were particularly good.

Next stop was Rialto Beach at Mora - a steep shingle beach with plenty of large logs thrown onto it as driftwood and a very vicious looking rip tide. After a short walk along the beach we thought we should go and take a look at the beaches on the other side of the river from Mora on the Indian reservation at La Push.

La Push itself was nothing much but on the way back out we stopped to look at Beach Two. After a bit of a trek up and over a low wooded hill and a scramble over more drift logs we emerged onto a large sandy bay with sea stacks and rock pools – easily the most picturesque of the days beaches.

We made it back to Kalaloch in time for the sunset and so ordered a couple of drinks from the bar and took up a strategic spot above the creek to watch the sun go down.

We drove north on the 101 from Kalaloch skirting the edge of the national park. This is an area dominated by the logging industry so as soon as you are outside the national park the trees get cut down – there are also a large number of logging lorries going up and down the highway at great speed.

At Lake Crescent we stopped for a walk up to the Marymere Falls – a short walk which took less time than we thought. We stopped for lunch overlooking the port at Port Angeles and arrived in Port Townsend in the late afternoon. We are staying in the Manresa Castle, a large building built in 1892, which feels strangely like a Llandudno hotel except for the views of the Cascades across Puget Sound.

Tonight we are going out for dinner with a friend of Paula's who she hasn’t seen since Belgium in 1995.

We left Port Townsend quite early after breakfast - we're convinced that we were the only people in the hotel. After a quick coffee stop in Poulsbo, a strange little town which is obsessed with all things Norwegian, we got the Bremerton to Seattle ferry - this took about an hour to cross Puget Sound and provided excellent views of the city's skyline as we were coming into the terminal. A short, stressful drive later we were at our hotel on Lake Union.

For lunch we went to Sky City, the revolving restaurant at the top of the Space Needle, and ate far too much food as the portion sizes were enormous as usual. We then did quick tours of the Pacific Science Centre, Experience Music Project and Sci-Fi Museums before getting the monorail back into town and eventually managing to find a bus to Pioneer Square.

Since it was the first Thursday of the month they have a thing called Art Walk where local artists have exhibits which you can go and visit (usually in offices) so we spent a while walking into random buildings to look at photographs and paintings. Afterwards we had a sit down and a couple of beers in a bar with a live jazz band - extremely popular and everyone seemed to be enjoying the food but we were too still full from lunch.

Today we explored more of Seattle. First we spent a few hours in the Seattle Aquarium which was excellent. Then we headed to the north end of Lake Union to Gas Works Park which gives an excellent view of the Seattle skyline across the water. 

On the way back to the hotel we found the Freemont Troll under the bridge. Since it is our last day in Seattle we also went gear shopping at REI.  

We've left the bright lights of Seattle behind and have gone east towards the Cascades. We're now in Snoqualmie Falls near to North Bend. At the top of the falls is the place we're staying, the Salish Lodge and Spa which anyone who remembers Twin Peaks may recognise as The Great Northern. For lunch we nipped down to the diner in North Bend and had coffee and cherry pie.

After an hour or so of exploring the building after check-in we took the I90 east a couple of miles to Twin Falls State Park where we did a quick 5 mile hike to take in the waterfalls which give the park its name. Then it was back to the lodge to take advantage of the steam room, sauna and therapy pools. We're just about to go and try the food at the attic bistro.

The plan tomorrow is to walk up Mount Si (1270m) although if it's raining we may just spend the day lounging around the lodge relaxing.

We managed to resist the lure of the spa and got out onto the hills - probably a good idea given the size of the breakfast that the lodge provided.

After a quick visit to the ranger station we took the 8 mile (but steep) round trip hike up Mount Si. For the main it was a switch back path through the Douglas firs but about a mile from the top we hit the snow line which made it a bit more interesting.

From the top we had a good view southwards to Mount Rainier whose peak was obscured in the clouds. The trip down was by the same route and quite tough on the knees - we spent some time in the steam room on our return to the lodge but I think we might ache a bit tomorrow.

We're back in Portland. We drove back from Snoqualmie down the east side of the Cascades which took about 5 hours. Since we had to get the rental car back to the airport by 5pm this meant that there was not a lot of time for sight seeing although the views of the snow capped peaks as we drove along made up for this.

We had a brief stop in Roslyn to continue our theme of 90s TV shows, this time Northern Exposure.

Our main reason for driving on the east side of the cascades was so that we could drive the length of the Columbia river gorge into Portland. This provided us with excellent views of the snow covered Mount Hood and took us past the Multnomah Falls where we stopped for some photos. 

Paula's conference starts today so I'm going to have to entertain myself for a few days. One of the things that Portland is famous for is brew pubs and micro-breweries so I feel that I should visit a couple of those before we come home...

Paula's conference has finished so we're at the airport. All things considered we probably prefer Portland to Seattle - more of a small city vibe to it. Obviously if we had the choice we would have spent the entire time on the Olympic Penninsula and not gone to any cities.

Whilst Paula has been busy networking at the conference I've had a couple of days to deliberate and I think my favourite bar in Portland is the Goose Hollow Inn although the best beer is probably the IPA at the Rock Bottom Brewery.

Our first flight leaves in an hour and then we have a couple of hours at LA airport before the flight back to London. Should be home late on Sunday evening.