We left our good friend’s house in Big Sky, Montana 6 days ago in freezing cold weather to head for Seattle. A 4 day ride that had few highlights due to the cold weather. We stuck to the Interstate 90 in order to move as fast as possible as it was too cold for motorcycling in the gear we have (even though we have full thermal underwear and light down jackets). We stayed at a couple of cool, old style motels, ate some reasonable Mexican food and hunkered down.

We left Montana and briefly entered Idaho before arriving in Washington State. I was starting to think that this was the dullest landscape we had encountered so far when we came into an area of incredible cloudscape, The most amazing I had ever seen. This kept us entertained for about an hour. I have not photoshopped these photos. This is how it looked. The clouds were so close you could almost touch them.

We are huge grunge fans and big fans of Frasier too (which was not actually filmed in Seattle apparently) so Seattle was a must for us. This also marked the crossing of the USA from the Atlantic to Pacific coast which is a huge milestone. We have ridden 7,000 miles since leaving Germany. We have crossed 20 states in the USA in 7 weeks. Anyway back to Seattle…

I was not prepared for the stunning setting of this city built on the water and totally surrounded by rugged mountains. Hard to capture in photographs to be honest. It must be a great place to live being so close to so many outdoor opportunities. We were lucky with the weather. It is famous for rain here but we had blue skies and endless sunshine for two days (despite how it looks on the picture below).

The main focus of the trip was a grunge tour where we got to see the places where grunge music began. We saw the blacksmith shop, underneath which is the practice room where the other Pearl Jam members first took Eddie Vedder when he arrived from California to join the band.

We saw the famous Crocodile club.

The apartments where the film Singles was filmed.

The house where Kurt Cobain sadly took his own life and the bench where people congregate to pay their respects.

And the Black Hole Sun sculpture after which the Soundgarden track is named (note the Space Needle in the middle.

I guess you have to be a real fan like us to appreciate the significance of these places. We also saw the Jimmy Hendrix statue. He came from Seattle too. What a great musical heritage this city has.

Seattle is also famous for the Space Needle, landmark from the 1962 World’s Fair and setting of the Elvis film It Happened at the World’s Fair, which we love. Most of the site is still intact and wonderfully kitsch.

We loved Seattle. The city does seem to have a lot of homeless people in the downtown areas (more than I have seen in any other western city) and feels a bit gritty in parts but there are great neighbourhoods and there is a good vibe. It is a place we could live.