Thursday 28 October 2010

Would YOU like to buy Mabel?

Greetings! The sun officially shone in Seattle today. Not that it's anything to shout about as we spent a day away from the city. I last updated you on Thursday from Clatskanie, Oregon and you've been able to look at some of our photos from the time after then.

Our time in Portland was the beginning of the end of shorts and tshirt. Our camping experiences, while still enjoyable, had been starting to get a bit frosty and wet, and generally all-round chilly. So we made a trip to REI (Recreational Equipment Inc) to buy some clothes that were warmer and more waterproof than what we already owned. Portland itself was a fun city even though we only saw it on a soggy wet day. We spent time in the Pearl District: once famous for industry and warehouses, the old buildings remain - their interiors filled with young, fresh and vibrant art galleries and up-market restaurants. Weird dressing and questionable fashion seemed all the rage, so walking around a cold city in shorts, carrying a banana and 4 bagels seemed pretty much the norm. You will have seen my bizarre "Caution: Authentic Japanese Garden" photo in the last post, but we kept coming across the poster in favour of pets. We got to the river front and saw Mill Ends Park that at 452 square inches is the World's Smallest Park. We rode the free bus that zooms around the city centre and then headed up the hillside to a giant rose garden and the aforementioned dangerous Japanese garden. In the car park of a giant arboretum we spotted a HAWAII registration plate! Now, normally under the rules of the registration plate game you need to: a) be driving your car at the time, b) see a moving a car. Neither of these rules were met, yet we still claim it. It was a big day as we also crossed 12,000 miles and hit our 35th state as we crossed into Washington briefly on the way to Portland. That evening we camped in a campsite just inside the Mount St Helens National Park.
Friday and at altitude it was really starting to get cold. Armed with new warmer clothes, we were able to really wrap up on top, but push one more day out of the shorts. Mount St Helens National Park was a very enjoyable (and educational) day out. Two visitors centres had educational films to watch and displays to walk through. I wasn't even a twinkle in my dads eye when it erupted in 1980. Having studied geography and geology at university back in 2001 and 02 I found it all to be quite exciting. Even though it wasn't a giant lava eruption, the evidence of damage even to this day, 30 years later, was staggering. Trees that weren't bowled over and snapped like matchsticks by the ferocious mudslide in the local vacinity still had their branches singed off up to 10 or so miles away, leaving a vast forest of dead, branchless, ghost-like trees. Unfortunately, the cloud never completely lifted and we didn't get to see the entire volcano. That evening we had dinner in a diner in Aberdeen! Many of the roads along the Olympic Peninsula reminded us of the A9 at night - soggy roads, little traffic and signs for Aberdeen taking forever to count-down. Camping that evening was by far the wettest - reports of a storm surge hitting the area over the weekend with swells in the ocean of 25-30 feet would leave most clammering for the hills away from the ocean - we camped right next to a beach in wet and windy conditions. Thankfully this was our last night of camping as conditions were really starting to push the limits of our balancing of the ratio of 'space in sleeping bag' versus 'how many clothes you can physically wear at once'.
Saturday was a day in a rainforest! Olympic National Park is the most westerly of mainland National Parks in America and so experiences a wet and mild climate most of the year round allowing for this rainforest to survive. At times it did just feel like a forest in the rain, but there were so many impressive trees with giant beards of moss hanging from their branches making it hard not to imagine the trees coming alive at night and slowly ambling around complaining about the rain and how the cold wind made their joints hurt. We made it to Cape Flattery where the most north-western point of mainland America meets the Pacific Ocean. Aware of the impending storm and the 5.30pm ferry across the Puget Sound to Seattle, we raced across the north of the peninsula and onto the ferry at a very satisfying 5.26pm. Friends of Duncan were hosting us for the final stage of our journey. Any lack of detail or miscommunication I put down solely to the near-constant food-induced coma that I experience here - thanks in no part to Colin and Jenny, very able chefs with a fine grasp of cooking all things well and all things in big portions. Just tonight, we were referred to as "the dogs", which after further investigation explains how the 2 of us eat for 6. It is safe to say that right now I am truly in love with food. Like a bear stores food for the harsh winter ahead, Duncan and I are preparing our bodies for the harsher and more northerly climes of Canada.

But I digress. I blame the apple/pear/cranberry crumble and ice-cream we had for dessert tonight. Sunday, we made it to Mars Hill church in Bellevue, a large district of Seattle. To every new person we meet now, we pose the question "do you want to buy a car?" - sadly we were not able to make any as yet successful contacts for Mabel, but do hope to be able to off-load some of the camping equipment with someone. We put Mabel in for a service and much-needed oil change and she came back all perfect. We then gave her a good ol' clean and left her in the incessant Seattle rain to wash off. We spent a lot of Sunday and Monday trying to better our chances of selling Mabel. One lady responded to our posting on craigslist and seemed keen, only to chicken out after realising Mabel doesn't like women drivers.

On Tuesday, we ventured out into Seattle on the "duck tour" - a truck that goes on water, driven by a certified US Coastguard and all-round nut-job. We toured round the down-town, through Fremont and onto the Lakes, before cruising back up past the Public Market and approximately 4,389 Starbucks. Many massive companies originate in Seattle: Expedia, Microsoft, Starbucks, Amazon, etc. Busses and shuttles again operated for free in the main city area, while most ran underground in the busiest and most congested parts of town: the benefit of building your city from scratch, rather than shooting roads through already-established cities like in Europe. In the market, I saw quite possibly my favourite sign of the entire roadtrip - Brussel Sprouts being advertised as "Little Green Balls of Death"! Seattle was another fun city - one which we'd like to see when it wasn't raining, but fun nevertheless.

Today (Wednesday 27th October) is our last day as a happy family - there is no knowing when Mabel will be sold, but as a full day of Duncan, myself and Mabel in America - there will be no more. We headed out to Mount Rainier National Park where it was clear from the views that a fair dumping of snow had happened while we were getting all the rain in Seattle. Most of the park had closed for winter, but we were able to get up to about 5,000 feet and see the impressive dormant volcano that is the 14,000 foot Mount Rainier. At 5,000 feet we were now among 4 feet of snow and impressive views of the surrounding Cascade mountains. At points off the trails, we were able to stand above the tops of trees, but only just because the slightest of heavy footsteps left you waist-deep in cold cold snow with the prospect of neck deep snow if you weren't careful!
So what is next? Our American road-trip will end tomorrow! As we were unable to sell Mabel, we shall be taking her on the ferry into Canada. We will spend 2 nights on Vancouver Island before spending 2 nights in Vancouver. I will then bring Mabel back to Seattle and leave her in the capable hands of Colin to sell on our behalf. We have one potential buyer who needs to be gently coaxed into parting with his money, even if it is in installments. We're working on him.
I fly to DC for a couple of nights before heading back to Detroit via Atlanta (as you do) and then home to Aberdeen via Amsterdam on the 4th/5th November. Duncan will be venturing across Canada for another 7 weeks, mostly on his lonesome. We both have awkward travellers beards to keep us company. I guess we just got lazy the last week or so, or we like to hold on to every last ounce of available warmth. I've floated the idea with Duncan that I should post updates for him every once in a while with my own made-up stories but I don't think his friends and family would be too impressed to find out upon his return that he didn't actually get a job for UPS delivering packages or become the first ginger man to skydive naked during the Northern Lights. So in terms of updates - I'll try posting one more to detail our Canadian exploits and then probably another sometime after my arrival on home soil to conclude our adventure and sum up the best and worst of our road-trip.
Thanks for reading. I do believe that todays mass moutain of food has settled enough for me to stand up and go to bed!

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