As a software engineer my employer wants to ensure that I develop the best software possible, so they recently sent me to Seattle for a training course. While I was there I travelled in and around Seattle and met up with some friends who were working there. I had a great time there.
Seattle has many advantages over Houston. I noticed people who valued art and style beyond the common trends I see in Houston (mostly a lot of Coach bags and fake tan). There were also many young women without engagement or wedding rings (also a common accessory here in Houston). There was beautiful street art:
Also Seattle values beautiful automobiles. There are many more classy old cars there than here in Houston. This may have something to do with the relative lack of necessity of air conditioning in Seattle.
I also stopped by the "Occupy Seattle" camp and saw some of their bed sheet art:
And of course beautiful autumn scenery:
On my second day in Seattle, I wandered around some more and found a privately owned garden that was open to the public. Basically it was a bunch of plants in someone's backyard.
I also caught up with my friend Ann who is in town working for a political campaign. We went kayaking on Lake Union, a lake that was once surrounded by large industrial facilities, but is now surrounded by homes and marinas.
We saw a decommissioned refinery at the north end of the lake and decided to "dock" the boat:
The refinery
At the top of a hill in the nearby park, we found a zodiac sculpture:
And a nice Portuguese man took our photo:
I stayed in training for the next few days, but when I was done I took my rental car around Olympic National Park. Olympic National Park is the northwestern-most National Park in the contiguous U.S. It's across the Puget sound from Seattle, so I had to take a ferry to get there.
I arrived in Bainbridge Island and stopped by a bakery to pick up some food, since I doubted there would be many fresh baked goods in the park. This is a photo of a nearby church:
Next I stopped by the shore of the sound and skipped some rocks:
I found a rock covered in barnacles:
I saw only one presidential campaign sign on my drive, but it looks like northwest Washington is Ron Paul country:
I drove through some rain to a trail in the park:
I think that is Mt. Olympus.
I took a long exposure, small aperture waterfall photo at the end of one trail:
Actually I took several, but this was the best.
The area is very moist, so mushrooms are able to grow well there.
The water is very clear:
In a town called Forks on the west side of the park, I saw a totem pole.
Forks was a strange place. For some reason all the souvenir shops had vampire-related items. I was told that many people visit Forks because they are fans of a series of novels about vampires that is set in Forks. I suppose that's a good enough reason, but I got out of there before dark anyway.
Next I travelled along the Hoh river in to the Hoh rainforest.
Yes there is a rainforest in Washington state. It rains there very frequently. The trees exude a substance that causes moisture in the air to condense above them. All this rain causes lots of moss to form on the trees. It's a very lush area, but also somewhat spooky.
Next I drove west to the Pacific Ocean shore. The sun had already gone down behind a cloud, but there was just enough light to get a few more photos.
This place reminded me of one of the closing scenes of the movie Goonies.
A lonely iceberg.
Around the shore there were many Tsunami warning signs.
The next day I celebrated my birthday with my friend Scott, who was inspired to come to Seattle after I told him how awesome it was. We walked to the Space Needle and went to the observation deck.
Nerds love telescopes.
We also checked out a nearby park with a fountain synchronized to Ride of the Valkyries.
We also found some berries in another nearby park:
And then went to a real Seattle rock show with some bands inspired by Nirvana.
For my last day in Seattle I met up with Scott and Ann to hike Mt. Pilchuck, a mountain about 1.5 hours northeast of Seattle. We drove about halfway up the mountain to the trailhead and started the hike late in the day. Night was impending, and we didn't have headlamps so that motivated us to move quickly. The landscape was covered with a thin layer of snow that made the scenery even more beautiful.
The view from the top.
I had to run, but I made it to the top and back before complete nightfall. I wasn't at all worried about the nightfall to be honest. The sky was clear and there was lots of light from the stars and the moon. I thought of my ancestors wandering through forests and plowing fields late into the night in the wind and rain at much colder temperatures. I had no doubt that I would survive even without a cell phone, food, water, or bulky clothing. I did have one big realization by the end of the hike, that I want all my children to be conceived on mountain peaks like this one.
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