The cruise ended Sunday back where we started in Seattle. We did Express Checkout where you take your own bags ashore - much faster but it does turn us into pack mules. The cruise parking operation in Seattle is run by Republic and is really slick: valet parking, they take your checked bags to the ship, and a covered walkway to the cruise terminal.
The drive south on I-5 has been interesting. We've seen a lot more RVs than we expected, given the high fuel prices. Lots of 5th wheel trailers pulled by pickups on the road, headed north. Quite a few Class A motorhomes, too. The weather did the classic "drive south" thing: overcast and gray through WA and OR until one reaches the CA border, then the sun comes out and the skies turn blue. It is just as I remember it from my grad school days at U of O in Eugene. I'd drive home to CA on vacations down I-5 and have that same experience time after time.
Weather in the northwest is traditionally overcast, gray and rainy. In the week we cruised north along the coasts of Canada and Alaska, we experienced roughly 26 hours of continuous clear skies - noon Thursday to 2 p.m. Friday. The rest of the time it was gray, gray, gray - not too much actual rain but threatening rain the whole time. The northwest is no place for someone with seasonal affective disorder or SAD (described here).
This time I remembered that OR won't let you pump your own fuel, but they do let you wash your own windows. Talk about your featherbedding operations, OR has thousands of people employed as pump jockeys, a job that no longer exists in most states. Good, old weird Oregon....
