Tuesday 23 June 2009

Road Trip : Seattle & Oregon

We had a flying visit to Seattle after Vancouver Island. We traveled by train, which would have been a fantastic experience, were it not for the fact that 30 minutes short of our destination we were stopped in our tracks (literally) by a fatality on the line ahead of us. In the end we got in to our hotel about 3 hours later than scheduled at 1am.

Hotel 1000 however was worth the wait... a really fantastic hotel in a great location. We hadn't had particularly high expectations of Seattle as it was merely a stop en route from Canada to San Francisco, but we actually loved it.

We had Sunday brunch in the rotating restaurant at the top of the space needle (see photo above) which was a bizarre but rather brilliant experience. After that we spent the rest of the day at the Experience Music Project and the Sci-Fi museum next to it. Jim got a military discount and I got a student one (thanks to my OU photography course) so a good day all round!

In Seattle we picked up our hire car to drive the west coast to Los Angeles. Jim had been fantasising about getting a Mustang since we booked it, but they were very reluctant to let one out on a one way hire, so gave us a Chrysler Seabring instead.... However, when we got it back to the hotel we realised the convertible mechanism was broken, and to cut a VERY long story short, 12 hours later we were driving out of Seattle in a brand new (6 miles on the clock!) red Mustang with a free satnav - Jim hasn't stopped grinning yet!

Seven hours south, we overnighted at another great B&B, the Rogue Forest. A wonderful cabin in the woods with an open fire, and a river rushing past. It was a great shame we were only there for a night, but maybe we'll have a chance to come back one day.

From Grants Pass, we had a brief stop at the Wildlife Images sanctuary where I at last got to see a bear (!!) as well as cougar, bob cats and raccoons!

From there it was another six hours drive through the beautiful Oregon countryside (with the temperature steadily increasing) to California and San Francisco.... we are staying here in the Argonaut Hotel for three nights and then its on to LA on Friday.

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