HiJenx

We crossed into Washington almost immediately as Portland is right on the border. We decided to stop right away to get our oil changed in Vancouver, Washington. The weather had still been gloriously summer like, though we did see a few leaves fall in Oregon earlier in the morning. It was in the high 60s and brilliantly sunny during our wait for the car.

Due to the oil change taking nearly 2 hours, we only got about 100 miles north to Centralia, Washington. The weather turned cold and wet. We experienced humid cold for the first time since England. It confirmed our desire not to live somewhere that does that sort of thing.

We didn’t do much in Centralia other than get a pizza. It was from a bar restaurant called Fielders though so we went to a bar for the first time in a while waiting for the pizza. It was also pretty good pizza. I recommend it if you are in the area.

We attempted to go on to Seattle the next day. We did succeed, but it took a long time. Traffic was also just extremely slow and it took ages to get anywhere. We had plans to see Microsoft, but due to being there on a weekend, everything was shut. Instead, we went to the State Capitol in Olympia:

A random lake that smelled weird in a suburb of Seattle:

And the grave of Jimi Hendrix:

Notice the lipstick marks.

It was dreary and rainy the whole day:

We went to the main drag in Seattle, which is Pike Place Market. It is near the water front, though there is a large and noisy road that separates them, so the view is a bit marred by the sound of traffic.

It is home to the first Starbucks, which is insanely busy and features its original logo:

We, however, opted to get coffee elsewhere, and honestly, in addition to the the queue being much shorter and the drink itself a much more reasonable size, it tasted better than a Starbucks cappuccino:

Seattle Coffee Works Cappuccino

We went to see the Space Needle, but honestly, it was hard to find. There are several buildings that are now taller than it, so it wasn’t as impressive as perhaps it once may have been. The weather was also disgusting, so we didn’t bother going up just to see a city covered in clouds:

A few things we noticed beyond the weather was some odd driving (people seemed inattentive and sometimes quite weirdly slow) and that there seems to be a large homeless population. It didn’t seem to be a city doing exceedingly well, though perhaps the suburbs are better. That said, given this climate is in no way for us, we decided to move on.

Check out the video: