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Published: November 26th 2015
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R: After Juneau, we headed down the coast to Seattle. There we met up Jo and Rob (I met Jo at Bristol - for those who don't know) who kindly put us up for a few days. She was firstly kind enough to collect us from the horrors of Seattle airport ( we are glad we have passed through for the last of our 3 times!). After a pretty traumatic night and flight, we took it easy in the afternoon. We hit the shore of the Puget sound which sits between Seattle and the further islands towards the Pacific as it isn't directly on the coast. We had terrific sunset here, Jo nearly fell in the water several times, and we realised we really were poor at skimming stones. We found a salmon slide which had to be tried - highly cultural I know - but you go in through the the mouth and come out at the bottom.... Im not sure if this is designed for big children or little children. The evening was reserved for wine, beer, chat and games.
Sunday we headed to Wallace falls state park in the north of Washington state. Here there are a
gorgeous sequence of waterfalls reached by a moderately difficult (apparently!) trail. We stopped off at a roadside bakery Jo and Rob knew first and bought sweet and sticky things like you have never seen before. So, in the end, we didn't burn any calories on this trip.
Monday is a work day, so Cate and I cleared out and went to look round the city for the day. Most of the day revolved around food and shopping - I have lost a number of items now since we began - which is apparently the new travelling me! Pike place market is the place to pick up street food, deli food, sit down food, any food, so we did - delicious smoked salmon things here, much better than we can get in the UK. Plus the fishmongers sing fish songs and throw fish at each other, so well worth a visit. This is also home of the omnipresent Starbucks - the original still being present in the market area. After that we headed to the city sculpture park which is about the only bit of the city's water front which is not spoiled by highways. Some were pretty good, especially
the giant head which looked like a Red Dwarf hologram. The Seattle centre was ok, it has the famous space needle, but we decided not to climb that as you can climb other buildings then see it as part of the view. The EMP museum is here - a really cool building with coloured metal sheet cladding which is an exhibition of rock music and popular culture... We were running out of time, otherwise I would have been in there. Overall it's a very functional city that has built up around its docks and later its tech businesses. We liked the Belltown district which is being regenerated, but most of the old stuff is being wiped away by the new.
We took the monorail (which only goes about 10 blocks - what's the point!?), all the time I was singing the monorail song in my head... Mono, D'oh. As is customary, I climbed the tallest building in Seattle (by elevator) for a grey rainy view before we headed back to Jo and Rob's, where we were introduced to a pirate board game which was a lot of fun and involved stealing. Oh, and there was time for a Starbucks
in there somewhere - the tall building had 3 in that building alone! Cate had been walking round the city shouting Starbucks loudly at each one. It was a fun game for the first fifty or so...
Early the next day, we took a trip to Salt Lake City, to start the next part of the journey, while learning about Mormons on the way!
Thank you Jo and Rob!!
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