Seattle - the final destination

Neither of us could believe that we had already arrived at our last stop on this trip and that it had come round so quickly. We arrived in Seattle on Black Friday - the biggest sales day of the year in the states. There were no RV parks within 20 miles of Seattle, so we needed to book ourselves into a hotel for the next 3 days. The usually reliable Sat Nav decided that it would be a good idea to take us right through the main shopping area, with millions of shoppers and hundreds of cars! This was probably the most nervous I have been driving the van and I was pretty sure I'd either smash into something or run someone over, but we managed to negotiate the traffic and arrived at our hotel in one piece.

On the agenda for the first night was to go and see the Seattle Space Needle before heading into Belltown for a feed and some beers. I have seen the Space Needle before but it looked really good at night.

As it was night time, we decided to take the ride to the top the day after. Next to the Needle there was a Winter Wonderland exhibition on that had all sorts of Christmassy stuff inside as well as a bunch of dancers on the stage which really got us in the Christmas spirit, even though we hadn't seen any decorations yet!

After food and drinks we called it a night. Saturday was going to be very packed. We walked to Pike Public Market, which has loads of little stalls selling stuff ranging from T-Shirts to fridge magnets to huckleberry jam to fresh fish and meat. The place was buzzing and it must be so satisfying to get all your fresh fruit, veg and meat for your lunch or dinner. There is a fish stall here that every time they get an order for a large fish, the fish gets thrown around like a rugby ball from one side of the stall to the other. It's really fun to watch and attracts a large crowd. The only place that rivals this is the market in Barcelona. One thing that is very cool about Pike Market is that it's the location of the first ever Starbucks. The queue inside was massive, so we didn't bother getting a coffee here, but it was quite cool to see it!! We also decided that we could get a coffee at one of the other billion Starbucks in the city.

After here we headed to Pioneer Square, located in the downtown district, to go and see the Mariners American football stadium, which is now shared with the Seattle Sounders football team. As we pitched up , we were in time to take the tour of the stadium, which was amazing. We were taken round the whole place ranging from the changing rooms, to the corporate entertaining area and even pitchside. To see how this stadium compares to the ones back in England was really good and shows that the Americans really know how to build their sports grounds.


Final part of the day was to go up the Space Needle. which gave us great views of the city. The plan for the evening was to hit the bars in downtown, where we ended up in Fago's Irish bar! I had been here before a few years ago and the place was as good as ever, including the live band that was the same one as I had seen here before. We got chatting to a Sol Campbell and Michael Clarke Duncan lookalike (John Coffey from the Green Mile) and ended up doing a few Lemon Drop shots with them.


A cracking night had by all. We stayed there until we got kicked out and jumped a taxi back to the hotel, where we both wanted a late night snack. Right by our hotel was a place called the
Hurricane Cafe. This place is open 24 hours and there were about 100 people in there. It's probably because we were both drunk, but the food we ordered tasted soooo good!!!

Sunday rolled around and we had planned to spend the day watching American footy in the local sports bar, which is exactly what we did, and after quite a few beers, another few bars we called it quits and headed back to the hotel.

Seattle is a great place that has everything. A lively nightlife, suburb restaurants, great shopping and a fantastic market as well. It's somewhere most Britons will never go as it's not touristy, but it's one of my favorite places and a perfect way to finish a perfect trip.

All the pics are here.

Lots of love

Stuoobs

xxx

Thanksgiving in Portland

Portland was our penultimate stop on our travels and we were due to be there on Thanksgiving, which we were both really looking forward to. As you will know, Thanksgiving is one of the major holidays in America and we wanted to get into the spirit of things so we booked ourselves into a plush restaurant for the occasion.

We still had 2 days to go before the big day, so after checking into the RV park, we took the bus into the city centre for a wander and some beers and found ourselves at a bar called Rock Bottom Brewery. Portland is famous for brewing its own beer and most of the bars here have what are known as "microbrewerys", so we picked from the several in house beers available and I must say, they were pretty good. Much more flavoursome than the mass produced Budweisers or Heinekens that we are used to. After a few of these, we moved on to a few other cool bars before calling it a night.

You may be aware that the state of Oregon has no sales tax, which can be as high as 11.25% in some states. This makes Portland a shopper's paradise and we decided to take full advantage so headed to the outlet mall on the edge of town. This was a tad disappointing as it was very similar to the outlet malls in the UK. We cut our losses here and headed to the premium shopping centre in town. This place had the more upto date styles and both Cazzie and I found a few tax free bargains in the Abercrombie and Fitch shop, so we left with happy faces!

The shopping trip took most of the day, so we retired to the van for the rest of the night.

The next day was Thanksgiving, we were unsure if any bars or shops would be open during the day, so it was a late start as we only got into town for 3pm. We managed to find a hotel bar that was open and sunk a few beers before it was time for out dinner at the Portland City Grill. This place came highly recommended as one of the best places to eat with fantastic panoramic view of the city from the 38th floor location. I don't have any pictures to post here as we were blessed with fog and rain so the views were non existent!

The meal itself was really good. I ordered the traditional turkey dinner and Cazzie opted for the rack of lamb. Add a starter each, 2 deserts and 2 bottles of wine we were expecting a large bill, but once again as there was no sales tax, we ate for $140 or £85, which we were both delighted with.

It was time to visit another one of Portland bars and we managed to find one that had some live music. The gins here were very cheap and flowing very freely. All in all a terrific way to spend thanksgiving.

Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures of Portland so I am unable to post any here, which is a shame as Portland is a great place. I think we missed out on a lot of the things to do here as it was Thanksgiving, but we both enjoyed the place nevertheless.

Love

Stuoobs

xxx

What to do on the way to Portland?

The drive from Napa Valley to Portland was going to take over 8 hours and not something we wanted to do, so we spent a lot of time trying to find something to do in between. We thumbed through the Lonely Planet guide, searched the Internet and even asked around, and no one could come up with anything half decent to do. As a last resort we unfolded the paper map (yes they still exist) and scoured the area and spotted Crater Lake, a mountain area located about 3 hours South West of Portland. A bit of Google-ing later we decided to give it a go and we are so glad we did.

The park was the best we stayed in. It was run by a retired couple that are ex rv-ers who wanted to build and run a park that they would want to stay in. It was in a terrific location right in the alpine forest, it had super fast and free Internet, steaming hot showers that were spotless, the bathroom it's self was very warm, the site was huge that we allocated to park in and to top it all off, it was one of the cheapest we had stayed at.

As it was late when we arrived, I paid the following morning and went to find Jim, the owner. We chatted for over 25 mins about what to do , what to see and where to eat, so Cazzie and I tidied up and headed off to go and see the waterfalls, lakes and raging rivers.

The main river that flows through this area is called the Rouge River. This flows fast enough to fill two Olympic sized swimming pools every minute and is a whitewater rafters idea of heaven.


The river has created holes in the softer rock and in some parts disappears underground before reappearing a few meters later. This tunnels are called Lava tubes and were very cool to see in action.

After a bit of a walk up and down the river, we headed to Becky's Cafe and as we walked in we saw a huge sign advertising their "Famous Homemade Huckleberry Pie". Huckleberries grow in mid-alpine regions, often on the lower slopes of mountains, so we were in the perfect location. We ate our sandwiches and couldn't wait for our pie and I'm pleased to say it was fantastic. So flavoursome, so juicy, so sweet and so bitter, all at the same time. Almost worth the trip on it's own.

So it was now time to head to Crater Lake, a place we didn't know much about. It's the deepest freshwater lake in North America (1,949 ft deep) and sits in the remains of a blown out volcano, now known as Mount Mazama. As we drove the van further and further up the mountain, the snow got deeper and deeper until it was over 4 foot high, which took us both by surprise.

We parked the van and walked towards the lake which is where we hit the waist deep snow!


After a very tough walk in this snow, we found ourselves in full view of Crater Lake, which was surrounded by snowy covered mountains, over looked by clear blue skies and littered with evergreen trees. A truly stunning sight.




We spent over an hour here wandering around and taking lots of pictures, that can all be seen here.

Crater Lake is not one of the famous tourist hot spots in the States and I'm sure not many people have heard of it, let alone go, which is a real shame. There is lots to see and lots to do here and the decision to come here was totally the right one.

Love

Stuoobs

xxx