Washington

Another puppy-hunting trip we made was by car down into Washington State to visit some breeders. This trip we also made in March.

Driving South along Interstate 5 you get good views of Mt Baker, one of several large perfectly shaped volcanoes which are snow-capped year round.

This is an aerial shot of the Puget Sound and Seattle area. You can click the image to make it bigger and see the place names. We initially drove South along Interstate 5, stopping at a couple of outlet malls on the way and stayed the night in Auburn, to the south, centre of this image. This enabled us to easily drive up to Port Orchard (not marked on the map) which is just south of Bremerton on the south side of the inlet in the centre of the map. This looks a long way on the map but was only about 30-40 mins drive from Auburn to Port Orchard. We met a breeder here and then took the ferry from Bremerton back across Puget Sound to downtown Seattle where we could head up to the town of Kenmore on the very Northern end of Lake Washington, about 13 miles outside Seattle. This is where Mojo and his breeder lived.

By the time we had arrived at our hotel in Auburn it was dark, so we hadn't appreciated this terrific view of Mt. Rainier from our room until the following morning.

On Highway 16 we crossed the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which comprises two mile long suspension bridges.

They were built to replace the original single bridge that was built in 1940 and collapsed just 4 months after it opened during high winds.
Here is some footage of the demise of the original tacoma Narrows Bridge.


After visiting the breeder in Port Orchard we headed up to Bremerton. Close to the ferry terminal is a US Naval Base, docked here were USS Independance, Constellation and seen here - USS Ranger.

Once on the ferry we get these views looking back at the sleepy town of Bremerton

This is Manette Bridge spanning Port Washington Narrows just outside Bremerton.

These views are through Rich Passage with Mt Rainier just visible on the horizon.

Once we exit Rich Passage and enter Puget Sound we get our first glimpse of downtown Seattle in the distance

Getting closer with views of the full skyline including the Space Needle on the left. I should add that the air temperature standing still was about -2 or -3 on this day. We had to keep taking it in turns to run outside onto the deck of the ferry to take photos because with the wind it was absolutely freezing and unbearable for more than about a minute.

The Space Needle

David with the Seattle skyline

Getting closer to the city. Arriving by ferry is a great way to appreciate the city skyline

One of the sports domes with the retractable roofs

Closer view of the main downtown area

A sightseeing boat passes us as we approach the city. No doubt their fares were a lot more than our 1hr ferry ride at $11.55 for a car and two adults !

Smith Tower

View towards the North end of the city

Washington Mutual Building

Final view of downtown Seattle as we approach the ferry terminal

This is a shot of video giving a panorama of Seattle as we approach it

This snap is of the city as we head North on I5 towards Kenmore

Once we arrived in Kenmore we met Mojo and the rest of his litter.
This is Mojo when we first met him. He was about 4 weeks old here.

Finally, a quick piece of video of the litter having their dinner......it's actually surprisingly organised and didn't end up in the huge fight you might have imagined.

So that is how we found the Mojo and the couple of road trips we enjoyed in finding him.