Paul’s Journal

On Tuesday, we went up onto the Space Needle:

Beautiful day. About as good as it can get for Seattle in May.

On Wednesday, we met up with Geoff, and went to the Mariners game:

Here is a pic of Ichiro’s lead off single:

Oh, and Geoff dressed up in Angel’s Gear:

And kept yelling ‘Go Angels!’.

Of Course, the bad news about the Mariners game, is that they lost in a shut out to the Angels.

I started and finished reading Ghost Brigades while we were in Seattle — only 22 more books left!. However, I just ordered the sequel, The Last Colony, from Amazon, so now I’m back up to 23 odd unread books.

Now we are starting the drive to Spokane….

Crossing the Border: We apparently were suspicious, and the booth guy sent us inside for another interview, but the guy inside was much nicer, and we were on our way pretty quickly.

Bridge coming into Vancouver:

Inside Vancouver:

We went out to Stanley Park, which was very nice. This picture is the Lions Gate Bridge from Prospect Point:

After lunch in the Park, we went to the Vancouver Aquarium, also inside Stanley Park:

They of course had jellyfish:

And the famous hand-holding Otters:

And we saw the Beluga Whales:

After the Aquarium we went downtown, and found a nice spot along the water to chill. Vancouver is an awesome city.

Jon has more pictures here and here

Went up to Mt. St. Helens today.

The Hoffstadt Bridge inside the Mt. St. Helens blast zone:

The next picture is taken from the Coldwater Lake Campground area bellow the ridge visiter center. Still too many clouds to see the whole mountain:

The Johnston Ridge Observatory isn’t quite open until next week, so we had to end our trip at the Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center:

Ended the day with a drive up to Bellingham Washington, so we can head over to Vancouver BC tomorrow….

Went on a tour of the Intel Fabs in Hillsboro. Cool Stuff, but no cameras allowed. Thanks to Auke and Stacy for taking us on the tour.

Made it to Powell’s around 3pm.

Bought 23 books, for around $340 total:

• Red Thunder by John Varley
• Red Lightning by John Varley
• Rand McNally California Road Atlas
• Rand McNally Pacific Northwest Road Atlas
• Woken Furies by Richard Morgan
• Market Forces by Richard Morgan
• Broken Angels by Richard Morgan
• Guardian by Joe Haldeman
• Infinite Dreams by Joe Haldeman
• Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman
• The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi
• Humans by Robert J. Sawyer
• Scientific Blunders by Robert Youngson
• 1,000 Places to See Before you Die by Patricia Schultz
• Programming the Universe by Seth Lloyd
• Beyond Spaceship Earth edited by Eugene C. Hargrove
• High Tech Heretic by Clifford Stoll
• At the Center of the Storm by George Tenet
• The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
• Blackwater by Jeremy Scahill
• The Dream Machine by M. Mitchell Waldrop
• Where’s my Jetpack? by Daniel H. Wilson
• Linux TCP/IIP Networking for Embedded Systems by Thomas F. Herbert

We went to Jo-Bar for dinner. mmm… it was very good.

Got onto the Freeway around 7:02am in San Jose.

Snapped a couple pictures of Mt. Shasta as we drove by, but none of them turned out super:

James has some nicer shots he took a couple months ago.

One thing I noticed going north is the crazy-drivers-per-mile metric steadily decreased. Once in Oregon, we were rarely cut off, or sped past. Although, one time a car with an oregon license plate did scream pass us, it’s plate was ‘49ers’, placing the owner as a Crazy California Driver.

Filling up with Gas in Oregon.. I completely forgot they have laws requiring Full Service Gas Stations.

Anyways, We made it into the Metro Portland area around 5:30.

Map sites say it was something like 670 miles traveled today.

Dear Mom,

I know you like making more artsy quilts, but could you make me a pirate quilt?

Your Loving Son,

Paul

PS: Yes this is supposed to be some kind of joke, but a Pirate quilt would be sweet. Yarrrrr!

I’m taking a week off, and going on a road trip.

Somehow, I convinced Striker to go with me, and he hasn’t done anything on the west coast before.

Currently the road trip has 3 constraints:

• Leave San Jose on Friday, May 11th.
• Seattle Mariners vs. Angels Baseball -
  Safeco Field, Wednesday, May 16th, 7:05 PM
• Back to San Jose by Sunday, May 20th.

I need your help. What should I do, what places should I visit, and what routes should I take to get there?

I have a couple things I’m considering right now:

• Powell’s Books in Portland. Last time I was there, I left with 8 books — but I knew I had to fly home. With a Car, this could be a very expensive stop.
• Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument - Never been there… Seems like it would be a good place to spend an afternoon, and maybe go on a short hike, depending on the weather.
• Maybe head up to BC, and go to the Capilano Suspension Bridge
• Other stuff around Vancouver? Victoria?
• I want to fit in a couple days after the baseball game to head over to Spokane. On the way over, I was thinking I could do a tour of Columbia River Dans. There are 14 or so… Could make a nice flickr gallery.
• General Seattle Stuff. Space Needle, Ferries, etc.