Seattle

In the old days we'd have started on Central Time at least; arriving in Seattle from Britain has meant a lot of early mornings.

Out on the street at seven on the first morning, we went straight to the centre of things: the navel of the city, and perhaps the world, the first Starbucks coffee house at 1912 Pike Place, opposite the market. The line outside was smaller than it had been at St Peter's in Rome, but there was a similar sense of occasion amongst the faithful. Inside the experience is slick and courteous, and at the time I might have thought this was the nature of a corporate flagship. After a few more such interactions I realised that I had just forgotten what it feels like to be a customer in America. But there is something else to it as well.

All around Seattle the story is the same. The signage in that original Starbucks is hand-chalked, almost rustic, although still comfortably within the corporate template. Around Pioneer Square, the heart of the old town, you can see the first skyscraper to have been built west of the Mississippi, and walk along streets down which fell trees tumbled, on their way to the waterfront. In the Museum of Popular Culture they have Jimi Hendrix's diary and Kurt Cobain's smashed-up guitars. Enormous Alaska-bound cruise ships now dock at piers from which prospectors once set sail for the Klondike goldfields. Aside from Starbucks, this is the home of such plucky little start-ups as Boeing, Microsoft, and Amazon. In Seattle, what starts out as indie, as rugged, or individual, has a habit of turning into runaway, corporate success.

For the most part, it seems that the city is at peace with this. The high-rise office towers gleam and smart-casual, ear-budded employees stride to their desks. A short boat trip around the sound reveals the industry of the port, with containers from China stacked up alongside grain silos that will be emptied, their contents exported to south-east Asia. Mass transit works brilliantly, with friendly and helpful staff aboard bus, light rail, and monorail. Everything is recycled, or composted, including plastics, and everyone, in every shop, restaurant, or museum, right down to the lanyarded police accountability officer who volunteered breakfast recommendations on the street this morning, has been utterly charming.

Maybe it helps that this is an irrepressibly progressive place. Everyone seems at ease with themselves, and with each other, and diversity and expressions of individuality seem to be genuinely celebrated rather than merely tolerated. From atop the Space Needle, the whole of Seattle shines.

Back on the ground, the tarnish is inescapable. Some of it, like the graffiti and the bubble gum wall, is playful.

But there is misery here too. The homelessness is worse here than anywhere else I've been. In the morning they are sleeping, in the parks, in doorways, under bridges; towards evening they haunt downtown and the tourist destinations. If there is a plan for them, it isn't working; if there's help available, they're not getting it.

For all that, this has been a pleasant place to spend a few days. Tomorrow, we leave behind the gleam and the grunge.

We're getting back on the road and heading a little south and east to visit the first of three National Parks, Mount Ranier.