My original plan for being in Washington was to photograph the remaining two campus signs -- Seattle University and Western Washington University -- plus visit my friend Lisa. However, because of the pandemic, I was unable to plan on getting into Canada (tour Vancouver Island plus the city itself), and, my flight plans were pretty much set, I changed to tour the Washington coast line on the Pacific Ocean and the Salish Sea. That led me to discover another national park in the state -- Ebey's Landing. NOTE: just before leaving for this trip Canada started letting U.S. citizens back into Canada. Too late for me to once again change my plans/reservations.

I have now driven through the top 150 U.S. cities, most of them more than once. In my opinion, Seattle is THE NUMBER ONE worst city to drive on the highways, just beating out Los Angeles. As for the worst in-town cities to drive in, Seattle comes in second behind Philadelphia. But the scaries state to drive on the highways still goes to New Jersey.

I did get the Seattle area college signs photographed. I noticed that near Seattle University is another university, Seattle Pacific University. I had to go to it one two different days to find the signs but eventually got them.

Along the Pacific coast Washington offers many places to see the ocean. I spent two days going up, then east, along Washington's many miles of coast line. It rained most of the first day thus photographing was less than ideal. The second day had more sun which was a nice change. Washington state sure believes in low speed limits for their two-lane highways along the coast. Rarely even up to 55 MPH, generally 25, 30, 35, 45 and 50. And, they change often while driving.

After my tour of three states over five days, I returned to Seattle for my last two days. During that time I got together with long-time friend Lisa. When we first met in 2005 we quickly discovered our mutual love of our national parks. Lisa and I have visited several of them in the west and east (when she was in New Jersey for a couple of years and I was in Boston).

My two days to drive the coast of Washington state had rain the first day and fog for several hours on the second day. Then, when I got almost to Neah Bay, there was a sign saying the entire town is off-limits to anyone but residents. I spoke to a guy at a gated entrance on the highway who said "Sorry, no visitors due to the pandemic". So my hour-long drive on the curvy narrow highway leading to it (and going back out of there) was for naught. Three one-lane-only construction zones were also on my way towards Neah Bay.

Some leaf color changing was visible in northwestern Washington. It is making its way down from the north!

Ferry ride from Port Townsend to Coupeville was very smooth. I could barely even tell, be feel, that we were moving. By over half an hour, I was the first one to arrive to line up for the ferry. I had learned years earlier when boarding the ferry at Port Angeles to Victoria that the first ones on the ferry are the first ones off the ferry. However, in Port Townsend (different size ferry), the big vehicles get to be first on and first off. I was #1 car on and off and #9 overall on and off. The crew really know they stuff and handle it all like a crew on a naval carrier might work. Fun to watch them in action.

I met my long-time Seattle friend Lisa. In all previous get-togethers we toured national parks. But this time we visited the Museum of Flight. It is by the Boeing Airfield and showed much of how Mr. Boeing started the company. It also had much regarding NASA's space flights. As we walked out after being there a couple of hours (and still probably missed several exhibits), Lisa remarked how it is fun to go to a museum with me because I know so much about what we are looking at -- the story behind the exhibits. She said she would be glad to revisit this museum someday. We did a self-photo with a life-size mannmequin of an astronaut.