As if things couldn't get any more beautiful...

As we were leaving the rainforest, it was alternating between light rain and sunshine. It seemed as if every other cloud had a shower to toss at us, while in between the sun would light up the landcape, making for spectacular scenery.

At one point, we were in awe of the rainbow forming to our left and we pulled off the road to admire it.

As we made our way through the valley, there were sections steeped in fog - hidden glacial lakes of clear blue water, as if undiscovered since the dawn of time.

We finally made our way to the westernmost edge of Washington, and drove along the coast, looking down on the mighty Pacific Ocean. In some spots there were wonderous cliffs where the shoreline was framed by magnificent forests.

There's an old resort upon the hills overlooking the Pacific called the Kaloch Lodge. We tried to get a room, but (obviously) it was all booked up for the holiday weekend. This is the kind of view you might see out of one of their cabins - a very large tidal pool. Hey if you're into driftwood, this is probably the place!

We moved south down the coast trying to find some place to crash, passing through all sorts of interesting towns, including an indian reservation. We finally ended up at Ocean Shores, a sleepy beach community that seemed to cater to tourists coming to the beach area. It was largely undeveloped, but you could see signs of expansion as a few chain hotels popped up.

Unlike other beaches, the shores here were flat and sandy. What impressed me was how large they were, and people were driving their cars down the beach, dogs and horses were everywhere. It was a refreshing change from the facist beaches of florida which don't allow any pets.

Another difference is the water here is cold; you don't see many people swimming, and there is supposed to be one helluva rip tide that the locals warn people about. We ventured out onto the beach at night and saw that the tide had carved large gullys in the sand from the receeding water.

Luckily we managed to find a room in Ocean Shores. It was quite funny because every hotel we went to there was either someone who had just come and taken the last room, or someone coming after us. We ran into a lot of those, "Well, I have one room left, but it's a suite for two hundred bucks a night" kind of bullshit responses, but eventually we found a decent inkeep and had a nice room right on the beach.

In the morning I snapped this picture of a seagull feasting on a Dungeoness crab - the birds eat very well out here!

At this point we drove back to Seattle and hit the Bumbershoot festival. It was going on for four days but we decided to hit the last day. Since I'd worked for the Jazzfest for over a decade, I didn't need multiple days of a music festival - but I definitely wanted to check Bumbershoot out.

I was very much impressed. While the caliber of musical talent was almost as good as the Jazzfest, the content: food, art exhibits, artesians and craftsmen, and other aspects of the festival were superior! Ok, maybe the food wasn't quite as good - some of the food was great; some of it sucked, but that's my New Orleans-style standards being overly judgemental. The place was well organized; the crowds were big, but not too big, and the emphasis was on an overall experience.

There were a number of things which immediately struck me as being "cool!" The first was that, in addition to the standard umpteen different stages with various musical acts peforming, they also had street performers, musicians, jugglers, magicians and others peppered throughout the grounds putting on shows for people. In many cases these "work-for-tips" performers were much more talented than their brethren up on the big stages.

Once such act that really impressed me was the Hanuman Trio: stand-up bass, 8-string mandolin, and a guy playing a djembe with bells tied to his feet and an assortment of other percussion. These guys had a unique funky-tribal-type of sound.

To the left are two other street performers, including the famous "spoon man", the subject of the Soundgarden song by the same name.

Walking around Bumbershoot, I couldn't help but wonder why I hadn't heard much about this festival before; why my fellow musicians never seemed know much about it - it was truly world class. Then I realized that's all part of the Seattle-esque, slightly xenophobic philosophy of downplaying how cool their community is. But if you can sneak in over labor day weekend, do so - it's worth the trip!

On the grounds of the festival were several art exhibits with really excellent quality work. Here we see someone's painting portraying the conflict during the World Trade Organization conference in Seattle awhile back.

There was also a beautiful glass exhibit that had some amazing specimens. I was impressed that amidst the atmosphere of a music festival, they would allow patrons to wander in and around such delicate sculptures. Then again, the drinking areas of the festival were limited to "beer gardens" and the populace couldn't freely walk around with alcohol, so there were virtually no observable instances of drunks. I don't think Seattle people drink a whole lot anyway. At least not alcohol - coffee on the other hand, seems to be the big addiction here.

This was an intersting glass sculpture that demonstrated real cool refractive properties.

It was getting to the end of my journey, and as it neared I enjoyed a sunset over Puget sound.

Not to be left out, I finally got a glimpse of Mount Ranier from the plane as I was flying back home.