In Washington we stayed with our relative Vernon and his wife Gisela. They lived on an island outside Seattle. One day we went into Seattle, the first big city we had visited so far on the trip. The next day we visited the temperate rain forest, which was very special.

July 24, Wednesday

We got up at 0800 and had breakfast at a restaurant called "Aunt.. ???" We ordered pancakes and received the ridiculous amount of six huge pancakes each, none of us being able to eat more than half of it! Why in the world do they serve such large breakfast? The waitress could at least have warned us!

On the way towards Seattle the scenery was at first flat and desertlike. I had expected mountains to appear, but this turned out to be only in the Western part of Washington. It was extremely hot, too, probably at least 40 degrees. There wasn't much to stop for either, except one canyon where there was a nice view over the river. Eventually the mountains appeared though, and we started driving through some very nice scenery, not being that different from Norway.

Just before arriving in Seattle, we stopped to have lunch at a Subway. Vernon had sent us directions on how to get through Seattle and arrive at the Bainsbridge ferry. Everything went well, except we missed the exit to the the ferry terminal and had to take an extra detour inside the city before finding the way back.

The ferry was quite expensive,although Tina and me only paid the youth price! The guy took a brief look at us and said "okay, two kids at the back. That'll be 23$ in total". Usually it's an advantage to look young, but do I really look younger than 18?

We just missed the first ferry and had to wait about an hour for the next one. On leaving Seattle we had a wonderful view of the downtown skyline. Interestingly, during the 30 minute ride, we were escorted by two small boats from the coast guard, each having one guy ready with a machine gun! Following Vernon's direction we eventually arrived at his place around 1830.

Vernon and Gisela were happy to see our parents, but they were rather surprised to see me and Tina, since they had no idea we were coming! It turned out that while e-mailing with Vernon, Tor had always written that "we" were coming, thinking it was obvious that "we" meant the whole family, whereas Vernon had been sure that "we" meant only Tor and Kirsten! Fortunately, this misunderstanding turned out to be no problem as they had space for us me and Tina in their trailer, whereas Tor and Kirsten stayed in their house.

Gisela had made pasta and chicken for dinner and then we talked and relaxed for the rest of the evening.

July 25, Thursday

We got up at 0730 and had bread for breakfast. Then we drove back to the Bainsbridge ferry terminal and parked our car in a parking lot. The parking automat was very strange. You just had to insert an amount money into an opening depending on how long you wanted to park. However, you were not given a receipt to place in your car window, so how could anybody know how long we had been parking? We couldn't find any ticket office for the ferry, the reason for this being that it was free going into Seattle for passengers without a car!

As the ferry was closing in on Seattle, we noticed the Russian Cobra submarine nearby. Tor was very interested in this since he had served on a submarine while in the Norwegian navy. It cost 10$ to be allowed inside, which I though was much too expensive. Anyway, it was pretty interesting to walk through the submarine, and Tor explained to us how things worked and how it compared to a Norwegian submarine.

Downtown Seattle was pretty busy and there seemed to be lots of bars and restaurants. Since we were already getting hungry, we all sat down at a restaurant to have a California club sandwich for lunch. Then we walked around in the area for a while, visiting various shops and the Pike market. We didn't actually do very much shopping ourselves, but it was pretty interesting to look around, especially in shops that specialised in certain products.

Eventually we decided to walk down towards the Space Needle area, which was not located completely downtown. There wasn't too much of interest on the way, as there were fewer shops and the streets were not equally busy. We briefly stopped at a small cafe since our parents wanted to have a coffee.

On arriving in the Space Needle area, Tor and I decided to visit the Science Museum, whereas Kirsten and Tina wanted to explore the general area by themselves. The museum was okay, but I've seen many similar museums that are better. It seemed to be aimed mostly at youth and children, although some of the exhibits were interesting. However, they had free Internet access there and I finally got the chance to check my e-mail for the first time in a while.

After meeting the others, we stood in line to get tickets for the Space Needle. It cost us 12$ each, which I thought was much too expensive, but again we couldn't really visit Seattle without going up there. The view from the top was good, though, and there were several "guides" giving information about what we could see.

Down in the basement we found a food court and had kebabs and falafel for dinner. Then we took the monorail back to the downtown area. The monorail had only these two stations, but it must be quite useful nonetheless with the center of Seattle being so compact. After browsing and shopping some more, we returned to the harbour to catch the 1900 ferry. We were back at Vernon's by 2100 and watched television and talked for the rest of the evening.

July 26, Friday

We were up by 0800 and ate a filling breakfast thanks to Gisela's homemade pancakes. Today everybody would go to the rainforest, so after having eaten we all got into Vernon's big car. Today Vernon was driving so Tor could finally get some rest.

There are several Indian reservations in the area, and because special rules apply to them, many Indians can make a living from selling fireworks, which is prohibited for other people. Another Indian thing is casinos, and we stopped at one called Seven Cedars Casino to have a look. The casino looked nice enough, except that a grumpy security guard believed I was under 21 years old and wanted to throw me out. However, he reluctantly had to let me stay after seeing my passport.

We also stopped at a place where pensioners had boat races with small remote controlled sailboats. They competed in making the best sailboats by hand, and this was one of Vernon's hobbies.

On the map it didn't really look very far to the rainforest, but all in all it took us three hours of driving to get into the park. The first thing we did was to have a picnic. Gisela and Vernon had brought along various good stuff , enabling us to make our own sandwiches.

The vegetation inside the park was very green and lush, with many trees being covered in moss. There were several short trails leading out from the picnic area, so that people could walk around in the forest. Together, we all walked the "Moss trail", and then me and Tina walked the slightly longer "Spruce trail". It was a wonderful area to walk around in, and both of us regretted that we were unable to stay longer and go hiking "for real".

After leaving the forest, we drove out to the La Push Indian reservation on the coast. The scenery was quite nice out there, and the place didn't look as rundown as expected. Obviously, the standard of living was lower than for the average Americans, but some houses were quite nice and it was far from being a slum.

On out way home, we stopped in a small town to look in the souvenir shops, and also briefly at a small Timber museum. Finally, Vernon took us to Port Havelock to show us where to take the ferry tomorrow. Gisela and Vernon even treated us to dinner at the local McDonald's. On returning to their home, it was getting rather late. However, we had time to transfer the pictures Tor had taken today to Tina's laptop so that we could all have a look. After talking a little bit, we all went to bed.