Spending time in Seattle

When I last left off, I was in Seattle. I stayed in seattle for quite some time actually... probably 2 weeks I think. I hadn't been in a town for a while, hadn't had a room of my own etc, so I was taking in the local flavor, and Seattle is I have to say, a very fun city.

Some highlights of my time there:
I went to a couple goth clubs. The scene seems to be slightly smaller than Massachusetts, but it might have just been the nights I was there.

I saw a number of bands play, mostly small local ones, but on one particular occasion, as I was wondering what to do, I found out that The Cure was playing that same evening, about an hour north. I called and sure enough, they still had tickets left.
I got to see a 2h40 minute set of The Cure. I gotta say, they put on a good show. Since no one opened for them, they had plenty of time to play a lot of their older stuff, which was great.

I got to visit the Science Fiction Museum. I have to say, it was great. They went into the roots of Sci Fi, the various influences and social/political reasons why different themes became popular. They had numerous relics (armors from starwars, control panels from the original star trek, etc etc...). The only complaint I had was that it was too small. I still recommend it to anyone who enjoys either reading Sci Fi, or watching shows/movies about it (aka fans).

I had mentionned in my last post that I had met up with Incus and that we had gone camping, but I never posted any of the pictures I took there.
I think there are fairly representative of the rain forest look that a lot of the mountains in north western washington have. It is a very wet environment, lots of streams and rivers. I love the way the moss covers everything here, from trees (live or fallen), to rocks.
The fog here was also intense in the evening. I remember riding in watching small clouds floating below me in the valley. You'll have to go see it yourself though. I didn't stop to take a picture.

Finally, it was time to move on and keep my trip going. I repacked my bags and did away with the sissy bar bag (the large bag that sat on my passenger seat). I am now travelling light.

The Washington Coast

I left Seattle and headed to the coast. After a fairly long ride (states are quite a bit larger on this side of the US) I got onto highway 101, which pretty much follows the west coast all the way down into northern California (it keeps going after that, but then route 1 is the coastal highway, and 101 is a "near" the coast, but not on it).
The coast line winds in and out a lot, creating lake-like sections. There are no sand beaches, it seems like the grass and trees just grow right into the water, creating something that looks like a marsh, only with salt water. Everything is very alive here, no big rock formations. I wonder how the plants deal with all the salt water, but somehow they seem to thrive.
It was a nice ride anyway.

I made it into Oregon around 5pm and headed inland towards Portland.

I have more to post, but I wanted to put up something. I'm off for a ride up Mount Diablo (pics soonish) I'll finish the update later.