WestCoast 2008


Views from the Parc 55 Hotel on Cyril Magnin Street, just north of Union Square and Market Street. The San Francisco Chronicle building, street car and cable car The Sushi Boat, housed in the basement has excellent sushi floating on boats for your pleasure. Various shots of San Francisco streets and restaurants. This Oracle World had 46,000 attendees. That's just nuts! Way too crowded to be enjoyable and it was very difficult to move around anywhere near the Moscone Center. However I did manage to wade through the vendor area and collect 28 pens for my best friend Shannon. A merry-go-round at Yerba Buena Gardens above the Moscone Center. This building is the old San Francisco Mint and looking down into the garden area at Union Squsre. There were far fewer homeless people on the streets than the last two times I was here. Didn't see anyone shitting in the streets either, just sleeping and begging.

San Francisco


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Portland

The vacation portion of my trip begins. I flew from San Francisco to Portland, Orgeon with the express intention of adding Oregon to my list of states visited. I took a cab from the airport to the Amtrak station where I would board a train and take a 3 1/2 hour ride through the Cascade Mountains to Seattle.

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I rode Business Class on the Casacades and it was an impressive train. Leather seats and only three seats across. I sat in a single seat which was very comfortable and gave me an unobstructed view of the scenery.

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The only way I get myself in any pictures is to turn the camera around and shoot myself. So I did just that.

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I took many pictures from the moving train through the windows and I wasn't sure how good they would turn out due to the reflection and movement so don't be too critical of these shots, please.

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Since Portland is located on the Willamette River just south of Washington state, most of these pictures were taken in Washington.

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Seattle

Entering Seattle we pass by the football and baseball stadiums.

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My hotel, the Silver Cloud, was located about a mile from the train station and directly across the street from Safeco Field. My room had a jacuzzi in it which I utilized frequently. It was a wonderful thing!

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The Space Needle. Built in 1962 as part of the Seattle World's Fair it stands 520 feet tall, about 50 stories, has glass elevators that take you to the top for magnificent views of surrounding areas. There is a restaurant up there as well, but get your eservations in early, it is a popular place to eat. I did some shopping after thr trip up in the shops below and of course, I bought more pens for my best friend Shannon. :<)

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In the distance is Mount Rainier, covered in snow.

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Seattle has a monorail that runs from the Space Needle to the Pike Street downtown area, where Starbucks originated. Do you know where the name Starbucks came from? I'll answer that question later, you know I love trivia!

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Sushi!!!! This place was amazing! As I exited the monorail I was hungry and the first place I saw in the mall where we got out was this sushi place. The dish you see here cost only $8.99 and was delicious! This amount of sushi/sashimi would cost about $30 in Gainesville.

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The Public Market, Farmers and Fisherman's market was amazing! It ran for several blocks and had impressive displays of fish, sheelfish and produce like I've never seen before in one place. This market is open every day of the year.

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A happy piano player singing inn the streets. Wonder where the piano goes at night?

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Finally sitting in row 18 behind home plate at Safeco Field. This marks my 20th baseball stadium and leaves only 10 to go. With the addition of Oregon and Washington to my states list, I now only have Alaska left.

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This map located in the seat back in front of me is what occupied my time on the return flight. It has several different display listing speed, distance travelled, outside temperature, etc. There were two crying babies near me who stayed active the whole flight so napping was pretty difficult. Watching this map, courtesy of Delta Airlines, was entertaining for a long while.

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And finally, the name Starbucks came from the novel Moby Dick. Starbuck was the first mate on Captain Ahab's boat, the Pequod.