Current Location: Seattle, WA, N 47 37.343', W 122 20.837', elev 94 ft.

On tuesday I didn't do a whole lot. I drove around downtown Portland to investigate the city a little, then headed north into Washington. I headed north until I got to the town of Kelso, WA (N 46 08.668', W 122 54.487', elev. 84 ft.), where I stopped for the night (relatively early) and did some laundry and other work. On Wednesday, I got up and went to Mount St. Helens. I drove out to Johnston Ridge Observatory, stopping along the way for photos and such. At Johnston Ridge, I paid $3 for the chance to take more photos and walk around the observation area, as well as check out the museum and film. One of the neatest parts was seeing that there were still some downed trees in the area, knocked over from the sheer force of the eruption blast in 1980, in which 59 people died. It was also interesting to see the valleys, which are still recovering from the mudslides 25 years later.

Photos from Mount St. Helens.

From there I drove back to the interstate, drove north until I reached US 12, and drove northwest and stopped in Elma, WA for the night. Thursday, I made the long journey around the Olympic peninsula, and Olympic National Park. From Elma, I drove west on US 12, passing through Aberdeen WA, home of Kurt Cobain. Entering the city, the welcome sign reads Come as you are.

I also saw a gentleman standing on a bridge with a picket sign that read "Intelligent design believers are living proof of unintelligent design." Well, I think this guy has the right idea, but the wrong message. His sign was kind of stupid if you ask me, because "unintelligent design" does not make any sense. I am by no means a supporter of the theory of intelligent design, but a lot of people seem to have it confused with creationism, and as an alternative or contrary theory to the theory of evolution. It is not! In fact, the theory of intelligent design, as taught at my Catholic high school, was designed to fit in well with the facts behind the theory of evolution, also taught at my high school. They are not mutually exclusive, and in fact, the theory of intelligent design came about to bring god into the equation of the mounting proof of evolution, when religions realized they couldn't keep up the fundamentalist creationism charade. I certainly do not believe intelligent design should be taught in public school, as it is a "theory" very much based in religion and belief in one god, without any proof, or evidence, just philosophical speculation (blind faith), as opposed to the "theory" of evolution, which is practically a law at this point there is so much scientific evidence to back it up. Intelligent design as a theory can also be applied to the creation of the universe, and not just the evolution of life. That doesn't make it a true theory, especially without any proof. The guy's sign should have read "The theory of evolution has a lot of facts backing it up, intelligent design has no facts and is idle theological-philosophical speculation". I guess that's probably too long to fit on a sign. How about "I am right, you are wrong. Shut up."

From Aberdeen, I found US 101 again, and drove north on that into Olympic National Park (N 48 03.950', W 123 54.461', elev. 127 ft.). This is a very remote place, a lot of trees, mountains, and rivers, and a bit of the Pacific. You know you're remote when there are no utility poles following the road. I also saw an interesting sign several times along the road here: "Delay of 5 vehicles is illegal, use turnouts." Olympic is very pretty, and has a lot of rainforest area, and a lot of mountains, but most of the park is inaccessible by car. Photos here.

US 101 pretty much curves around the entire Olympic peninsula, doing a loop back down to Olympia, WA. My initial intention was to cut over to Seattle via one of the two bridges that cross Puget Sound from US 101, but unfortunately, both were closed for the weekend. I'm not sure why this was but I assume it was either repairs or shipping. So I continued on down the 101, all the way to Olympia, not far from Elma where I had stayed the night before. Arriving in Olympia (N 47 02.869', W 122 49.303', elev 406 ft.), I noticed a sign Olympia - All America City, I think a lot of cities have this designation, but the other one I know most intimately is Troy, NY. Strange that these two all-American cities are named after famous Greek cities.

This brings me to the next track on the Jon Sheldon Across America soundtrack, Olympia, WA, by Rancid.

Hangin' on the corner of 52nd. and Broadway
cars passin' by but none of them seem to go my way
New York City well I wish I was on a highway
back to Olympia...

Rancid is one of my favorite bands, and I wanted to bring them up when I was in Oakland, but I forgot. Friday, I drove north on I-5 until I reached Washington 512 in Puyallup, WA, and from there headed south on Washington 7 and 706 until I reached Mount Rainier National Park. Mount Rainier is beautiful and I got many many amazing photos of the mountain and glaciers and forests and waterfalls. Mount Rainier is a very nifty place, and on clear days can be seen in most of northwest Washington, since it towers 8,000 feet above the surrounding areas. It sticks out like a sore thumb, and can be seen in many tourist photos and postcards of Seattle. Here are the photos from Mount Rainier.

I left Mount Rainier at about 4 PM and drove north on Washington 123 through the park and Washington 410 until I reached I-405 in the Seattle metro area. I drove I405 north into Bellevue, Redmond and Kirkland, haunting grounds of Layne Staley before he formed Alice in Chains (also one of my favorite bands). From there I headed west on the very last stretch of I-90, into downtown Seattle, for Safeco Field. I got $5 parking and a $13 ticket. For some reason, scalping was huge and very obvious around Safeco. I'm not sure if its illegal, but there were at least 10 scalpers, and they were bold enough to stand in front of the ticket window in an effort to sell. They actually were very insistent salesman, and after I bought my ticket at the window, one even came up to me and harassed me telling me I could have saved 6 bucks with him.

Safeco is one of the more beautiful parks, I would rank it second behind SBC Park. It wasn't raining, so they had the roof open. Nintendo owns the team, and there were many Nintendo exhibits on display, including some yet to be released video games. The Mariners were playing the Angels. I didn't stay for the whole game, which the better team, the Angels won 9-4. But I did stick around long enough to see plenty of home runs in this supposedly pitcher friendly park. Photos. After the game, I found a motel and stayed the night in Seattle, the Emerald City.