New year's eve watching Buckethead play at the Moore theatre in Seattle
Me and My King in Olympia
The Washington state capitol building
Mmm, yum (I think)
At the Mt St Helens national park
For New Year we decided on a short road trip to the USA...
We
drove about 4 hours to get to Seattle, got questions fired at us by US
customs ("what? you have a working visa for Canada but don't have a
job?? Surely there must be something illegal in that..."), and we did
the super tourist thing in Seattle - Space needle, old skytram, Pike
market, etc). That night be caught the Buckethead show (I think he was
the guitarist in Guns and Roses and got his name from playing with a KFC
bucket on his head.... but his music is pretty good). That finished at
about 11pm but by the time we navigated the somewhat scary streets back
to our hotel (Seattle had a very different feel to Vancouver or any
Aussie city) we got back just in time to see the fireworks launched off
the space needle to bring in the new year. It was fun :-)
We
headed as far south as Portland and stayed the next night in Vancouver,
Washington. The weather has been on/off (Snow, ice, rain etc) so we
went to a movie and wandered the streets during the breaks in the
weather. The next day (Andys birthday) we planned to go north to My St
Helens but 10 minutes down the road and the car dies on highway 205 - no
power, no nothing. We sat on the road for hours and I spent a fortune
on my new mobile phone calling my flatmate (the only number in my phone)
then the car hire company in Canada, the insurance company, the tow
truck and the mechanic. Upside, we got to meet a real life traffic
cop!!! haha. So eventually we got towed and spent the day in the
Westfield Mall being thoroughly bored. They thought we would be there
for 4 days until Tuesday (cause they needed a part from Canada to do the
repair) until they found the real problem... an electrical cable had
disconnected. By the time we were moving again it was past 7pm so we
wrote if off as a bad day, found a motel in Kelso and had 'diner' food
for dinner... not a good choice - very greasy!
Today we got an
early start, sneaking out of the motel whilst a schizophrenic man
terrorised the reception staff (the cops came - we took their picture).
We got to Mt St Helens to find the visitors centre closed due to
'inclement weather'. I had my first slip on the road, hitting some
black ice when trying to overtake a trailer. I was moving really slow
at the time but I cannot tell you how scary it was to see the drop-off
on the side of the road approaching and not being able to do a thing
about it. You cannot take the weather for granted here ever.
We
carried on (Andrew was now in the drivers seat whilst I composed myself
:-) ) and stopped by in the state capital of Olympia to see the Capitol
building. Go to Andrews page on Facebook for the pics - it was
magnificent. We had lunch there too before carrying on to Port Angeles,
where I now sit in a $49.99 a night motel 2 blocks from the Ferry
terminal. We are catching the ferry over to Victoria on Vancouver
Island tomorrow (Back on Canadian Soil... hopefully the food choices
will improve! - Yay). We plan to drive up to Nanaimo, catch another
ferry to Horseshoe Bay, and be home in time for dinner!
The USA
has been great fun. It has met alot of the stereotypes that we have
held (Americans are Loud, their money looks all the same and they eat
lots of junk food) and quashed others (Supersize doesn't exist anymore!!
Andrew was crushed).
P.S. Best part of driving here; you can
turn right on a red light!! It would be like taking a left in Australia
of course. It takes a bit of getting used to, constantly thinking a cop
is going to pull you up and fine you for doing something illegal, but
it is surprisingly efficient.
