Seattle, WA

One of mine and Jon's favorite parts of the trip, Washington stole our hearts away. We thought that Eastern Oregon and Washington were drab and pretty boring. We thought people were smoking something (it is legal in some parts now) when they told us of the beauty of Oregon and Washington. Once we hit a certain point though we could see what all the fuss was about. 

We met up with our friend Aaron in China town and had some awesome honey walnut chicken with him for Lunch/Dinner. He volunteered to show us around the city, so we followed him to all the hip places. 

We walked quite a ways and saw so many cool things like the world fountain and the space needle. I loved the feel of the town. Things seemed peaceful and like home, yet they were exciting and energetic. We saw the museum of music and I walked the maze (above). It was quite tranquil. 

We went to the first things of many. The first City Target, the first Starbucks, and the first space needle. :) 

The original Starbucks

Pike's place market was fun. We didn't get to see the market in the morning when most of the action is happening, but we will definately go back and see that. It was fun to imagine the kind of people that come and the kind of atmosphere that is there.

In the allyway next to the market is the famous gum wall. It's tuurning into a gum alley slowly, and it is purely discusting, but it was kind of cool to say that we have been there. The whole alley smells really sweet. If I were to live nearby I would open up a small little cart that sold all sorts of gum. I think you could turn a fair profit based on the amount of gum that is stuck to those walls. 

Also on one of the streets we saw several brilliant ultramarine blue trees. Apparently an Australian artist, Konstantin Dimopoulos paints these trees as an awareness campain against deforestation. They were really cool at night, and I am sure they are even more bright in the daytime.  

That night we ran into some problems, as we usually do on our adventures. We were with our friend Aaron for most of the night and we kept putting off getting the hotel. That was a mistake. I should have booked it before we got into town, because when we were trying to book something with crappy Taco Bell internet at eleven at night, everything was sold out that we could afford. We searched high and low for something. We finally found something cheaper in a city nearby, but that would mean that we probably wouldn't come back into Seattle in the morning like we had planned. but we were so tired we did it anyway. Well the reservation company kept saying it was the next day and we couldn't book something that had already passed. So we called the company, well they tried to reserve something for us, but their computers were doing something funky too because I was told to wait, and then when I got called back all I could be told was that there was nothing they could do for us. So we went to the hotel since we had planned on going anyway, and paid for the night, but it was twice as expensive as it was on the website. I was ticked. I have never had a problem with hotels.com before, but this was enough to make me not use it since and I don't know if I ever will again. 

Other than that little escapade, Seattle was great. I want to return to Seattle again. I think I would even consider it for a place to settle down at. 

Tacoma, WA

Tacoma was just as cool as Seattle, and not that far away. We met up with our friends the Carters and had lunch at a local seafood place. The food was great, the view was great and the company was better. We had fun there before we ran off to catch a fairy over to Victoria Canada.