Washington

PCH Day 14: We made an early (ish) start as we had a few miles to cover today. It was pouring with rain and stayed that way for most of the day. Our first visit location was Lake Quinault, part of the Olympic National Park. Most of the forest surrounding the lake and in the National Park is temperate rain forest (one of only 3 in the Western Hemisphere, I believe). Unfortunately we did not have the rain gear necessary to allow us to walk any of the trails, so we had to satisfy ourselves with the 30-mile drive around the lake. The forest measures its annual rainfall in feet, not inches, and gets between 12 & 15 FEET of rain per year!!! Almost everything is covered in moss and lichen and the trees are amongst the biggest of their kind in the world (not quite up to Giant Redwood size but not far off). In many ways the pouring rain added to the atmosphere of the place. Well worth a visit. Moving on, we stopped next at one of the beaches along the coast, called Ruby Beach. It is very picturesque and again, worth a visit. We continued our journey on to today's destination - Port Townsend - driving through the little town of Forks and the slightly larger town of Port Angeles on the way. We were going to take a detour up to Hurricane Ridge, up in the National Park on the way up to Mount Olympus (Washington, not Greece!) but with the weather being so poor we decided to give it a miss as we wouldn't have been able to see anything. After checking in, we had a wander round the "historic downtown" of Port Townsend, once a booming port during the age of sail but now a bit of an upmarket holiday/arty type town. Very pleasant place to visit though. Tomorrow: Seattle! 

We have now completed our journey along the West Coast of the USA along the Pacific Coast Highway! We have travelled from the Mexican border, South of San Diego, all the way along the coast line and along the top of the Washington coast to Seattle. It's not the end of the trip, I hasten to add. We have a couple of nights in Seattle and then we are taking a short trip up in to the mountains, popping in to I-didley-Idaho (to quote Harry Enfield!) and returning to Seattle in a few days' time to return back to the good old UK. So, keep reading for a few more days yet!

PCH Day 15: There was a slight change of plan and pace today. We agreed to travel to Seattle across the sound by taking a ferry to Whidbey Island and then motor across the island and catch another ferry to the mainland and in to Seattle from the north. Jilly did all the planning and arranging and it all went like a dream! She even managed to arrange some glorious sunny weather for our journey. We had time before our ferry left Port Townsend to wander around downtown in the daylight and capture some memories on "film". A delightful town and well worth a visit if you are in this part of the world. It was flat calm on the water, not that either of the ferry journeys were long. We checked in to the hotel relatively early for us and made use of the gym, pool and spa! Tomorrow we explore the sights and sounds of Seattle. Sadly the forecast is not looking as great as today, so we may not see much if we go up the Space Needle. We'll have to see.