Rainless in Seattle

From Oregon we went to Washington. For a short while we kept driving along the coast but the landscape was getting more and more green.

Green

Finally we said good bye to the ocean and we headed east. We stayed overnight in state capitol – Olympia, at Dale and Colleen’s from Boondockers Welcome. We got there pretty late and we left early so we won’t write too much about our hosts, only that they were very nice, they had an old volkswagen they traveled by and they spent many years in Alaska. The last part was the most interesting for us but we didn’t really have time to ask about their stories… Next time.

Colleen and Dale

By the way, their volkswagen had old German plates under the American ones. They do the same in Libya (even with Polish plates) and Chicago sometimes (especially with Polish plates)…

Eddie and our hosts' volkswagen

Next morning we went on, to Seattle. We spent next three nights at Dean and Sue’s in Des Moines, less than hour away from the city of Nirvana, Grey’s Anatomy, UPS, Boeing, Microsoft, Starbucks and more. We met Dean’s mom, full of energy 83-year-old lady, who hearing about our journey said “Great! Amazing! Wonderful! Travel as long as you can, especially while the kids are so young! Good luck on your journey!”, instead of „Oh my God, with kids? So far? Aren’t you afraid…?” - just a small cultural difference …

Dean and Sue with Maciek

Dean had some RV advice for us, he knows a lot about them as he buys, repairs and sells them. Together with Sue they spend winter months in Mexico, although lately they had to start spending more time at home as their moms require more and more help, or at least their presence.

Skyline from our hosts' deck

Next three nights we spent in a very center of Seattle, despite Dean and Sue’s invitation to stay longer. We would love to, but our next hosts lived in Mercer Island - beautiful place with amazing views of Seattle skyline and Olympic National Park. Kathryn used to work as a teacher, she spent a few years working in American school in Teheran, her husband, Shaun comes from Iran. Revolution of 1979 got them somewhere in between and they spent next few years in London. Then they moved back to States. Kathryn misses Iran, she’s been there few more times, Shaun waited a long time before visiting old country, but it’s not the same Iran any more, he said. Revolutions…

Kathryn and Shaun

So we spent in Seattle almost a week. On top of music and coffee, Seattle is famous for the rain. To our surprise it didn’t rain once while we were there. We promised not to spoil the legend and write that it was wet and grey, but the pictures don’t lie so we won’t either. The weather was fantastic. It was warm and sunny!

We spent most of our time wandering the streets. We went to Klondike Gold Rush museum where we learned about the importance of Seattle in the Gold Rush. And it was very important. The Gold Rush lasted just 3 years and most of 100 000 people who went there ended up with nothing. And most out of 4000 lucky ones who found gold lost everything afterwards chasing more wealth.

For Seattle it was a huge step into a new era. From a small town somewhere in the west it transformed into metropolis. Gold Rush was also exceptional for other reasons. It was the first ever well photographed popular event. There are lots of pictures from those three crazy years. Second of all for Seattle it was a huge marketing action. There were ads bought by mayor, hundreds of thousands of leaflets, letters to mayors, senators and anyone else mayor could think of, who was involved in directing gold seekers. Seattle was a gateway to Canadian Yukon from Vancouver and Portland. It earned a fortune because Canadian authorities required everyone entering its territory to have full provisions for one year.

Space Needle

Seattle won, mayor lost. He finally went to seek gold himself, he came back mentally ill and he died forgotten in a shelter. We would write what was his name but we forgot. Bad luck, even now.

Museum is free and is located near the oldest part of town, Pioneer Square. We spent there over an hour. Other places we saw were a fish-smelled Market Place, Pike Place with the oldest Starbucks, from our car window we took a picture of a symbol of Seattle - Space Needle, we walked the waterfront, we strolled a once grunge and now a bit poshy Belltown and we took a ride on a huge wheel from which we saw our next destination. More about it in next post.

Our hosts recommended us Ballards Locks a.k.a. Hiram M. Chittenden Locks. We found out there, that even though everything looks pretty and natural it’s not natural at all. Almost 100 years ago Seattle area looked different. Everything was changed by building a channel and locks between Washington and Union lakes and Puget Sound. This one up, the other down and lets go on with sea business. In Ballard Locks everything is shown and explained well and you can see boats and ships going through. We were there when boat season was starting so there was even something to see.

Fish ladder

Additional attractions are a very nice park and a fish ladder mostly for salmon. Unfortunately end of April and beginning of May are not a good time to see fish, they were two tiny ones that probably got lost. Last but definitely not least, park that surrounds the Locks is perfect for picnic, so we spent a couple lazy hours there.

Ballard Locks

We also went to Bainsbridge Island, mostly to take a ferry ride on Puget Bay. Island has a nice main street with coffee places and antique shops (and one very nice shop with travel gear – Hi Linda!). It was ok but not a must-see, maybe because we didn’t have too much time there. We stopped for an overpriced coffee and crepes and soon we had to head back to Seattle not to get a parking ticket.

We really loved Seattle, probably we wouldn’t if we were there on its typical rainy day, but in a sunshine it’s a really beautiful city. It doesn’t look anything like dark and scary place from a great series "The Killing". It’s so different than Florida or San Francisco. Florida is mostly crowd of retired people. In San Francisco you can still feel the hippie spirit. And in Seattle, which was surprising for us, it’s still lots of young, depressed people listening to hard music.

We were also surprised by the amount of homeless people (most of them with Starbucks cup in hand). We’ve seen them in San Francisco, but they would gather there in parks and on back streets. In Seattle they are in a very center. And after 8 pm they have it all to themselves, as most of coffee places and restaurants close 5-6 pm, and most of clubs are in Belltown or other neighborhoods.

We were expecting to visit a lot of great coffee places in Seattle, but we have to admit we were a little disappointed. We went to Starbucks cause, well, you have to go to Starbucks in Seattle, we also went to a few independent coffee shops like Trabant Cafe and Bedlam, but they were nothing special. The best coffee shops in States are not in Seattle any more, but, what we found out later, in Portland.

The oldest Starbucks

Besides Starbucks we went to one more „corporate” attraction in Seattle and it wasn’t Bill Gates’ house. We also skipped Boeing museum as we’ve seen enough of airplanes during that trip. And completely without a plan we found a tiny park in founded by UPS on its 100th anniversary. Park has its own security but still among Japanese and Polish tourists there are some homeless people there. Maybe it’s a new corporate social responsible business policy – to build nice parks for homeless people… Just kidding, we see it as a really nice contribution.

Park UPS