Blogs from Washington, United States, North America - page 204

Because my decision to go to Seattle was so spontaneous, I arrived there absolutely unprepared. A wonder that I found the hostel and had a place to sleep there! However, more or less at the same moment like me arrived Oli. He’s from England who just arrived from Japan and China, he’s next station will be New York. So we stayed together for one week and had a lot of fun. Seattle is pretty cool city. People are very kind and relaxed and downtown isn’t too big. So we could get to almost every spot by foot. On 4th of July we went to Alki beach which is a little bit outside of Seattle. At the evening we could so from there the firework which was quite impressive. Besides shopping (in almost every shop was ... read more

Today, we decided to sleep in a little, not remembering that the sun actually rises around 4:45am and our curtains were not quite drawn tight enough. We got ourselves up and ready and packed our bags. We rented our car with Budget and they came and picked us up at our hotel at 10am. After signing away my life and left arm on the rental agreement, we were on our way south on I5. We quickly decided the best route and headed right for Mt. Rainier National Forest. We arrived at the main gate of the park around 12pm. After paying the $15 fee, we were on our way. We decided to head for Paradise, that's right... Paradise... which is the location of the main visitor center on Mt. Rainier. On the way up we ... read more

Toured up to Mt. Rainier National Park, passing Mt. St. Helen’s on the way, which unfortunately was shrouded in clouds so we couldn’t see it. Made it to Rainier and discovered it’s early in the season for them (snow still melting at mid and high elevations) so we had no problem getting a campsite. Immediately saw the impact of the huge November 2006 floods which devastated sections of the trails around the park. The park has tons of rivers, and many bridges are still out. Back at camp, we were fascinated and repulsed by the “toilet sink” - is it a toilet or a sink? Seems to be where you’re supposed to wash your dishes, but also requests people to empty their ‘toilet receptacles’ in it - sounds like an invitation for gross things to ... read more

Breakfast this morning were omlettes individually made by the cook at the Lido restaurant. It only took the whole 7 days for me to discover how good the omlette cook was! Then wait till our color and number were called (4 blue) and proceed to the gangway to leave. Good bye Amsterdam!... read more

"Go away rain! Come again another day, like tommorrow, after we're done with our tour!" I guess it was to be expected, we were very close to Seattle after all. After a late night at the gambling hall, The Tulalip Casino, waking up this morning was difficult. When we did, we headed straight for the motel's conference room. Our continental breakfast was waiting for us, good thing 'cuz we were hungry, as usual. We headed south afterwards hoping that we could find it in ourselves to pedal all the way to Portland. Ha! As if! :) Sleeping in, dinkin' around, and excessive breaks(after all, we are on vacation) prevented us from accomplishing such feat(250 miles in one day). Rene and I have done 200 miles in one day, but we raced the clock, without gear. ... read more