The drive down south from Port Townsend, mosty following the 101, often reminds me of the area in Germany where I grew up - just without the heavy traffic. Narrow roads winding through deciduous and coniferous forrests and over hilly landscapes. Says it reminds him of France, so I guess we can agree on "European". We pass sleepy little towns
 and at least one million "Espresso" signs, none of which Starbucks :-)  Every little roadside shack  is equipped with a smll(!) espresso maker, which sort of makes up for the cloudy and overcast weather. The weather forecast  mentioned "drizzle", and drizzle we get: Lots of it! Late afternoon the "drizzle" turns into solid rain, which doesn't stop until we finally call it a day in Astoria. We enter Astoria over the longest continuous truss bridge in North America. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astoria-Megler_Bridge), a bit over 6km in length and very scenic. Unfortunately the pouring rain prevents us from taking any pictures. We pull into a motel parking lot and consult the weather forecast: Rain rain and more rain.  So we decide to go to bed early, get up early and zip as far south through Oregon as possible to make it into (hopefully sunny) California.