Episode 1: Northern Over-Exposure

Saturday comes around pretty quick when you're working this hard, and it's difficult forcing yourself to get time off (my list of deliverables isnt getting any shorter). We decided to force a break, and rather than head out to the Pacific again we opted for heading east to a place recommended to us by a friend at Microsoft. He said as soon as we clear the mountains we get desert. When your from the UK your sense of scale is based entirely on the fact that you live on a small island with much the same terrain all across it. Bumpy, green, occasionally mountainous very often flat and boring. But generally green and covered in trees. Washington State is about 300 miles across from coast to the border, so you'd expect it to be similar terrain, so our friends suggestion sounded a bit odd and we felt we needed to see it to believe it.

We decided to use it as an excuse to drop in on the city where the TV show Northern Exposure was filmed, Roslyn. Neither of us are particular fans of the show, and cant remember much about it, except that there was a Moose in the opening titles and it was supposed to be in Alaska. Nevertheless, a good excuse for a drive.

Some pretty awesome scenery along the way, one particular piece of the I-90 sees the free way split to run either side of a gigantic gorge. That was pretty impressive. If any of you are familiar with Northern Exposure then some of the pictures here might be familiar. Or like us you'll have completely forgotten and politely nod and say "hmm.. yeah vaguely remember that".

Yet again I was harrased by store owners asking me to write on their map of where we've come from in the world to visit their tiny town. I'm sure the addition of "Great Britain and Her Empires" looks good on their US Map.