Travelling from Salem OR to Seattle Washington

Yesterday we travelled from Salem, Oregon to Seattle Washington with an overnight stop at Longview in Washington state with the plan to visit Mount Saint Helen's volcano, unfortunately mother nature had other plans for us as the cloud base was very low and raining, anyway we attempted the drive to Mount Saint Helen's but had to give up before we reached the observation post as the visibility was less than 20 feet due to cloud and with a winding road it was just to dangerous.

The road trip itself to Seattle is rather uninteresting with very few photo opportunities.

A view up the valley towards Mount Saint Helen's. As you can see the cloud base was very low and also the river is still full of debris and ash washed down from the volcano.

Cold Water Lake on the way to Mount Saint Helen's. Again full of debris from the volcano. All around are fallen trees however the area is making a remarkable recovery with new trees shooting up all over. 

First view of Seattle from I5 freeway. The freeway is 7 lanes wide going one way and jamb packed with vehicles. On the left is the Space Needle tower and in the front foreground the SAFECO baseball stadium in the centre background is the Bank Of America Tower which is the tallest building in Seattle at 1050 feet.

The entry to Seattle's Chinatown otherwise known as the International District, it is nowhere near as good as Brisbane's Chinatown and pretty much a dump.

One of the ferries on the Puget Sound.

A very large totem pole (60' high) stolen from Alaska and erected in Seattle's Pioneer Square - see http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=2076 for the full history on it.

The top of another totem pole.

A view showing the ferry docking.

Virginia Street one of the very steep sloped streets in downtown Seattle, we had an excellent dinner at the bottom of this street.

Pike Place Market is an open-air shopping place next to the water.



One of the many old buildings close to Pike Place Market.

 Tomorrow we are off to visit the Boeing aircraft factory but unfortunately they do not allow cameras so no chance for photos.