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Posted via Pixelpipe.

Day 3 - August 18th - Seattle

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Computers come in all sizes!



We’re staying a 2^nd night in Seattle, with a BBQ party on the evening. Teryk takes care of electrical issues with the GPS.



I’ve never been to Seattle before so I spend several hours riding around and visiting the areas recommended by Patrick. It is a beautiful city! The water is everywhere, it’s very green each neighborhood has its own character. In the same time it’s maybe too similar to San Francisco to be really surprising without having as much charm (in my eyes). And the traffic downtown was just brutal! Did I mention I hate not splitting lanes?

The pics I took don’t represent Seattle at all, but I was just fascinated by the scale of the ‘industrial’ sites like the harbor and all.

Many freeways in Seattle...





But also a lot of beautiful houses, right on the water





I visited Mercer Island where Bill Gates lives and it’s quite gorgeous, reminding me a bit of Sausalito. I didn’t see Bill but I saw some other rich guy (at least with a huge house) who was so bored that he was making a ton of noise with his blower to clean up to the street



Hey, they even have house boats here



And old boats...




They were simulating a fight and you could hear the canon and smell the powder smoke.



A few random pictures that I like...

This one represents in my eyes the "old/new" Seattle with this factory transformed in offices for some Hi-tech company.




Old and new again



And the fascinating harbor





Then it's time to go home where Patrick is already working on some amazingly good BBQ



A really good time was had by all!

Day 2 - August 17 - Grant Pass to Seattle

Day 2 - August 17 - Grant Pass to Seattle

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It was really cool to go to sleep while watching the stars last night. The sleep was not so good like it’s often the case for me for the first camping nights. Early wake up again while Teryk is still asleep.




The packing routine is not optimal yet but we leave reasonably early after stopping in this great place for a coffee.



We want to be in Seattle not too late tonight since we’re staying at Teryk’s friends’ house. There is no real cool route to reach Seattle without wasting too much time so we opt for the ‘5’. The ‘5’ is a real nightmare for Californians riders because it’s so straight and boring. Here it’s very different, going over passes with turns and nice scenery. Really cool, but not for long enough. Going further North, it becomes flatter and straighter, the traffic is heavier and it even started to rain. Not fun anymore!

Even if you tell yourself “Hey you’re going to Ushuaia, it’s your dream ride” the feeling for the day is still “Well, I’m going to Seattle and the traffic sucks especially when you can’t split lanes!”.

The good thing is that we were able to make the Autocom work this morning so were able to chat on the freeway. We were not sure to take them on a trip where simplicity should be key but we decided to give them a try, at least for Alaska. Boy, we were hooked right away! It takes a bit of practice to make them work fine but when that’s done it made our riding life way easier.

Keeping an eye on your unlocked valuables is a real issue on a bike so here we go



We just wanted to arrive in Seattle but the traffic was stop and go around Portland and again in Tacoma before Seattle. At this point I was really craving for the remoteness of the big North.

Fortunately all was forgotten with the wonderful welcoming of Julieann and Patrick! There were also 2 good friends of them staying for the weekend and the dinner was a lot of fun.