The Emerald City

After a lot of rain in the great north west, we decided not to try and brave Mt. Saint Helen's and face the fog again in Washington. I still haven't seen a mountain peak in Washington as the clouds seem to just hang around at 6000 feet above sea level. With the weather not cooperating with us we headed for Portland, Oregon just an hour and a half south of Chehalis. Our great host, and chauffeur Carole, took us down to the city that is known for being a bit eclectic. The city was pretty nice with lots of breweries and restaurants to check out. The farmers' market was open, and I sampled wonderful cheeses, meats, breads and wild mushrooms. We also checked out Powell's Books, a famous book warehouse in Portland that even has it's own parking garage.

On the way out of town we stopped off at the Pittock Mansion as it started to pour again. Pittock was known as one of the first explorers to come out west on the Oregon trail. He later owned the Oregonion Newspaper and made is millions. The mansion was amazing, and the showers that he had installed in the house were state of the art. Kristen was most impressed with the kitchen stove and butler's pantry as many of the antique cooking equipment and tools were so far ahead of it's time.

Today our gracious host once again made a wonderful breakfast for us before we headed north to Seattle. Carole, Jan's sister, told us that she was not known for her cooking, but the meals we had at her house were some of the best we have had on the entire trip. When we first arrived, we were treated to fresh Pacific salmon, potatoes, mellon and salad. The following morning we had bacon, blueberry pancakes (with fresh blueberries from the backyard) and mellon. This morning we had a ham, egg and cheese omelette, bacon and toast.

We stopped off at a local brewery and meat shop for a little snack for lunch in Centralia, Washington and landed in Seattle around 2:00. We watched some fish being thrown at Pikes Place Market, sampled the local fairs including Polish sweet breads, chocolates and Pikes Own brews. Jan's son, Scott, was down in the city and he met us over at the brewery. Both of us partook in the sampler tray (my seventh of the trip) and found some wonderful beers. He also invited Kristen and I up to his place in Everett, Washington to spend the night.

After a snack at Pike's Place we rolled over to the Space Needle. The sky was still a bit cloudy, so instead of taking the tour to see out over the city we bought a two-for-one pass to the Experience Music Project and the Science Fiction Museum. Both museums were quite impressive and the EMP was better than the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. Not only is there a huge collection of music, outfits, and concert garb, but there is also lots of fun technology to play with and try out. You can play instruments in sound stages with audio directions, scratch records at the DJ mixing stations, sit down in a lounge and listen to iPods, or sign-up to play in your own band in front of an audience and have the entire experience captured on DVD for your fans. It was truly amazing how much you could actually do and pretend to be a rock star. I even got to jam a few CCR tunes on bass guitar at one of the sound stages. I am a little rusty, but was able to pick it up after a few practice sessions.

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