To Seattle (area) and Back Again

Mt. Rainier

Yesterday I drove to the Seattle suburb of Redmond to pick up my son and bring him home for spring break. He doesn't drive so that necessitated the trip. Unlike my last trip to the Seattle area (to take him to school after the Christmas break), this was a pleasant trip, mostly, on a spring-like day.

Highlights of the trip: the roads were perfect, bare and dry the whole way. Traffic was a problem at times (especially in the metropolitan Seattle area, mostly caused by people taking on and off ramps very slowly). When you drive in the Bellvue/Redmond area (home of Microsoft) you notice (if you pay attention to such things) that the average type of car improves. The place is thick with Audis. I saw two high-end Porsche 911s. You almost always see at least one Tesla electric car and this trip was no exception. I even had a Nissan Leaf follow me on the freeway for a while (didn't know they could go that fast). And I saw a Jaguar F-Type in the wild for the first time ever. The sound of its exhaust note was nearly erotic as the car accelerated. And at throttle lift, it barked and snarled as a good English sports car should.

It was one of those days the tourist board likes to talk about. The Olympic Mountains were visible and we say Mount Baker (near the Canadian border) which I haven't seen from Seattle since my college days. Of course, Mount Rainier was visible and majestic from the Ryegrass rest stop in Eastern Washington to Issaquah's Rainier Lane street.

Now, if it just weren't for the traffic, it would have been a nearly perfect trip to the Seattle area.