The skyline of Seattle is dominated by the Space Needle with its observation deck offering views of downtown, Mount Rainier, Puget Sound and the Cascade Mountain Range.
 

Seattle's Olympic Sculpture Park is an innovative topographically varied space at the water's edge for displaying sculpture of multiple scales.

The Seattle Waterfront curls around Elliot Bay and features a series of piers housing the Seattle Aquarium, the Great Wheel, and numerous seafood restaurants and souvenir shops.

Set on the hillside above the waterfront, Pike Place Market is the city's oldest Farmers' Market with a delightful collection of meat, fish, produce and flower vendors, and collectibles and crafts shops. (Mtaylor444, Wikimedia Commons)
 

The Museum of Flight holds one of the largest air and space aviation collections in the U.S.
 

The Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP), founded by Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen, is dedicated to contemporary music and popular culture.
 

Ballard and Fremont are two of the quirky neighborhoods of Seattle with eclectic shops and eateries, farmers' markets, breweries, and public art, including the Fremont Troll lurking under the Aurora Bridge.
 

This artwork depicts the two icons of Seattle's food scene, Dick's Burgers and Ivar's Seafood, surviving atop the Space Needle after flooding due to climate change.

The Willamette River, a main tributary of the Columbia, passes through downtown Portland. The historic Portland tugboat is moored at the Willamette seawall at Tom McCall Waterfront Park.

Washington Park is Portland's center for tourist attractions which includes a zoo, forestry museum, arboretum, children's museum, rose garden, Japanese garden, amphitheaters and sports fields.
 

                   Portland has remarkable public art in places that take advantage of the natural wild settings.
 

Pioneer Courthouse Square is the heart of Portland's walkable downtown core.
 

Portland has a vibrant street food culture with numerous sidewalk cafes and food trucks.

Powell's City of Books, the largest new and used bookstore in the world, is a landmark in downtown Portland.

It is pleasant to take an art walk through the streets and parks to find the delightful and sometimes quirky sculptures, murals and installations.
 

About an hour's drive from Portland is the Pacific coastal town of Cannon Beach with its vast sandy beach and photogenic Haystack Rock.
 

20 active volcanoes dominate the view in the Cascade Arc that extend 1300 kilometers from British Columbia to California.

Mount Baker, lying between Vancouver and Seattle, is a spectacular area for climbing, hiking and skiing.
 

Mount St. Helens, lying between Seattle and Portland erupted in 1980, in the largest volcanic explosion in American history.