Seattle is a very industrialised city developed around the Puget Sound with some very impressive scenery- it is quiet different from Portland with cycling less obvious and little specific facilities provided to allow for safe riding. It has an good public transport system with combination of bus, street car, tram and light rail and of course the mono rail from the Seattle Centre to down town shopping centres. There is a section of the city downtown where light rail and buses uses a dedicated transit tunnel which works very well. We enjoyed the best experience we had since coming to the US when we visited the Chihuly Glass and Garden Museum- the works of a local US glass artisan-Dale Chihuly- on permanent display in a new facility close to the Seattle Needle ( telecom / sky ... read more

Days 5 and 6 have been travelling days, moving from San Francisco to initially Eureka in Northern California and then today to Medford in Oregon- tomorrow we head off to Portland for 4 days before our cruise. We have hired a car and are getting used to driving on the right side of the road - only one near miss but we are gradually getting used to it- we have a dodge station wagon which seems very big but relative to some other cars on the road here is a medium sized car. We have traveled up the US 101 and 199 highways and through the red wood forests - truly amazing - look at the photos in the blog- in particular a section of 32 miles called "Avenue of the Giants" which refers to giant ... read more

Landed in LA on 11 July at 6,30 am - flight of 13 hours not too bad - food and service was good but not much sleep. Had some plane delays on transfer to San Francisco but got there at about 2.30 pm Hotel in Union Square which is very well location wise. Today- July 12 went on tour of the Golden Gate Bridge and a beautiful town called Sausalito- San Francisco bay - compares with Sydney harbour , both very beautiful. Tomorrow of to the Muir Woods to see the majestic redwoods - looking forward to this very much San Francisco reminds me a little of Sydney and the US is very similar to Australia from my perspective- many different nationalities living together but many maintaining links with their country of birth or ethnic origin. ... read more