Seattle, our last port of call

So that’s it then. After 10 glorious weeks of adventure and fun we reluctantly hand back the keys to the van. 

I know it’s only a silly old campervan but we’ve formed a ridiculous emotional attachment to Rocky …see, we’ve even given her (it!) a name. Wend was in tears this morning and I think I might have had a speck of something in my eye too.

She (it!) has served us well with no mechanical hiccups or tantrums despite a fair bit of abuse (because as most of my friends like to remind me, I’m a lousy driver).

We covered 6823 miles in total. Which is a long way in a vehicle that struggles to go faster than 60 mph. It’s actually further than if we’d driven from London to Cape Town. 

We still have three days in Seattle before flying back though, so still lots to look forward to.

Seattle ticks a lot of the right boxes. It reminds us of a slightly less hilly San Francisco with maybe just a dash of New York grunge. It’s big too. The wide streets and large deco buildings in downtown giving it much more of a big city feel than say Portland or Vegas. 

Much of our first day is spent doing touristy stuff on the waterfront and moseying about in the historic centre. 

It’s pleasant enough, but as Wend reminds me every 5 minutes; “It’s not the same as being in Rocky”.  

A rather shocking observation is the number of homeless folk we see. Far more than back home and noticeably more than in less affluent cities we’ve visited such as Bogota, Medellin and Quito. Sadly there seems to be no safety net in the US for the have-nots and I guess their welfare is not top priority for Trump and his tawdry acolytes. It’s desperate stuff really and makes you question where we’re headed in western society.

 

The next day we head out to the town’s famous ‘museum of flight’, which is a fabulous van-free way to spend 5 or 6 hours. There are hundreds of aircraft on show and tens of hundreds of plane-spotter blokes with massive cameras taking photos of them from every conceivable angle.

Vintage bi-planes are suspended from an enormous glass-roofed ceiling, there are weird and wonderful helicopters, Heath Robinson style gliders and lots of military jets with big bombs and guns and shit.

But we prefer the stuff in the huge open-sided hanger outside. We get to go inside one of the world’s few remaining Concords, follow in the footsteps of Nixon, Kennedy and Reagan on the original Airforce One and climb aboard the first Jumbo ever to enter service.

What really blows us away though is the special exhibition marking the 50^thanniversary of the moon landings. 

Meticulously curated it features all sorts of crazy stuff like the Eagle space capsule, a moon buggy, one of the huge rocket blasters from Saturn 5 and the trumpet Neil Armstrong played when he was a schoolboy.

Yes, we could happily have stared at that trumpet all afternoon. 

Day 3 in Seattle is an odd one. It’s Wend’s birthday… Hurrah! But also the last full day of our trip… Boo!

We visit the artsy Fremont and Georgetown neighbourhoods where ordinarily we’d have had a blast. These are our kind of places – quirky shops, cool bars, interesting locals etc. but there’s a huge shadow hanging over proceedings...

...we know we’re going home tomorrow and much as we’re looking forward to seeing our lovely friends and family we’d really really like to sign up for 8 more months.

I was going to write one last post for the blog to try and sum up the utter fabulousness of the adventure but I honestly don’t have the words.

Suffice to say the trip has surpassed our expectations in every respect. If you haven’t been to any of the countries we’ve visited and the blog has tickled your curiosity then don’t dawdle; sell the car, auction your dog or send your kids out to sweep chimneys, and just go. 

Life’s short. It’s not a rehearsal. You only live once. Seize the day. …so many clichés all saying the same thing. But you know what? They all ring true.

Thanks for reading, it’s been a bit of a chore at times to keep the thing updated but your comments and feedback have made it all worthwhile.

A heartfelt thanks too to Phil & Fran, Erin, Andy & Luella and Steve & Anna who invested precious time and no little money to hang out with us for different parts of our journey – these are definitely the bits we’ll remember most fondly.

And finally the biggest thank you to Wend. Lover of life and love of my life. It would have been rubbish without her.