You can't stay there forever.

My Washington stay was about to end so instead of coming home, Ms Darlene flew up for a few days.

I pretty much took her to the sites that were reasonably accessible, such as Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle, the skyline view from West Seattle, Gig Harbor, Mount Rainier and a lot of really neat places.

I had not been north of Vancouver British Columbia so that was added to our quick agenda as well.

Here's a few pictures.

The Seattle skyline from west Seattle

 

Then there's Pikes Place Public Market with peppers 

 

Ruston, Washington with Mount Rainier

Traffic is almost as bad as Baton Rouge

 The trip would have been incomplete without taking her up to Sunrise on Mount Rainier

Part of our plans were to ride up to Vancouver but after arriving, we decided to move on up the coast to Whistler, he home of the 2010 Winter Olympics.  Along the way we hiked around the coast.  The sites were stunning to a pair of bayou drifters.

There were waterfalls along the way.  Not much of a hike.

 

Probably the most interesting thing we enjoyed was the Sea To Sky Gondola ride.  We watched for a while to make sure that's exactly what we wanted to do.  You know, it's a long drop if one of those cables break.

 

Longer and higher than we thought.

At the top, there was a suspension bridge we negotiated.

Although signs warn people not to run on these things, it never fails finding some dufus who thinks it's too scary to walk and decide to run causing the whole thing to swing and shake.

Ms Darlene was certainly not ready to come home but time was limited.  So, back to Seattle for the last day.  Here's one of the nice restaurants we tried; Anthony's on Pier 66.  Good seafood here.

I put her on the plane early Monday morning and made sure she was on the right side so she could see Rainier one more time as she flew back to Louisiana.  I followed a couple of days later.

I apologize

It's been a while since I've visited my travel log/blog.  I have no excuses other than an acute case of apathy.

Since I left New Mexico, I've visited Vancouver, Washington for which the experience was so miserable, I'll think twice about wanting to go there again.  Other than a side trip to Canon Beach, I consider it a bust.

From there, I spent several weeks experiencing the bayous and Mardi Gras near home in Morgan City, Louisiana near home

 

as well as a few weeks in Kansas City, Kansas being able to catch a car show and visit the World War 1 museum.

 

Flagstaff, Arizona is next.

Quick visit to Oregon and Washington

After a quick ejection from Victoria, Texas, I found myself on a red-eye flight to Portland, Oregon and a job in Vancouver, Washington.

My co-worker and I, Toni, pretty much worked 10-11 hours daily and when Sunday came, it proved to be constant rain that dampened (was that a pun?) our sight seeing along the Columbia River.

However, as I was finishing up work mid afternoon last Saturday, I looked on the Weather Channel and saw there would be a 3 or 4 hour window of sunshine over at Cannon Beach, Oregon.

Wasting no time, I went back to the hotel, put on jeans and grabbed the Nikon for a 2 drive westward on highway 26.

Raining most of the way, there would be short bursts of sunshine and couldn't resist stopping off for a well timed selfie at a rest area with a really nice rainbow.













Moving on to Cannon Beach, I walked down on the beach near the Haystack rocks to take a few pictures.  Something that massive caused people to just stand at the shore and just gawk.  So did I.

It was just simply amazing.

Even though the sun was shining, the sunlight filtered through the haze like a flashlight shining through a dirty glass.

As sundown finally came, I drove the two hours back in the rainy darkness hoping I wouldn't meet a deer or elk along the way.

On early Sunday morning, I loaded up again hoping to find a little more scenery I could enjoy and drove up the Oregon side of the Columbia River past Troutdale toward Multnomah Falls which I've had the pleasure of climbing up the zig-zag trail beside it.

Today, there was just a whole lot more of rain than I was prepared to deal with.  Oddly enough, as wet as it was, I only saw one umbrella there wielded by a couple of Japanese tourists.  The locals just shrug it off.  I didn't have an umbrella either but it was because I'd failed to bring one.

I did drive up the road on old Scenic Highway 30 and took some hiking trails by some other falls and streams.

It was really nice walking under the canopy of trees which acted like a natural umbrella.

This trip is going to be short lived and expect to be out of here in a couple more days.  It's too bad I wasn't able to get my wife up here because she really enjoys this area.