Washington - Start of a tour into her beauty

Our recent visit to Washington, inspired me to get back into writing a blog again after a long time. Tied to my birthday gift from my boyfriend, it was a 1st for both of us going into active volcanic territory. I was mostly excited about that versus the concert we were going to see called Sasquatch (aka yeti of North America). More on that in a later blog.

What stuck out the 1st going towards downtown from the Sea-Tac Airport was the highway sign.

Yup! It's the face of George Washington and there's a town called George!!! This is a sign in Quincy, WA about 3 hours east from Seattle though and east of the Columbia river. This was taken when we went to the concert later.

After getting over the sign, next notice was the trees. 1st reaction was, they all look like HUMONGOUS christmas trees.

Aka Douglas Firs or this type is the coast Douglas-fir. Taken when we went to the Mt. Rainier National Forest.

Started off our tour with going through Pike's Place Market, mostly to get me a sweater as it was cold. This market reminded me of shopping for local fares in Sri Lanka where you have to haggle to come down to a reasonable price. Also how the fresh fish (didn't have a terrible fishy smell like it does in Sri Lanka), the fresh vegetables, and other fares are laid out. It was similarly set up and so different from the rest of US shopping. Truly worth for leading you down memory lane or a different shopping style.

Then we made our way to Mt. Olympus at the Olympic National Forest which is about a 3 hour drive to the west, on a peninsula (created during the last glaciation) of its own. This mountain was formed from the accretion of the sea floor as subduction occurred on the west coast. Thus, unlike the Cascades to the east, this is a mountain made up of shales and sandstones and not volcanics. This is the most NW i've been in the continental US.

Mt. Olympus in the very distant background or where the road seems to end at.

Google did take us on an exhilarating ride along steep slopes on one side and up the slope of the mountain and we came across some land where the trees were cut down.

Trees cut down by the Green Diamond Resource Company in the Olympic National Forest. Another sight i wasn't expecting.

The drive led up to where it started raining to a point where we couldn't see the road, so we decided to turn back. Rain is a typical occurring on the west side of the mountains here and this includes Seattle. Not a day went by that it did not rain. Kind of a damper but we kept moving east the next couple of days where it would rain less. 

I will post about our drive to Mt. Rainier next.