For the past two days Jennifer and I have been in Twin Peaks country.

Twin Peaks was filmed largely around Snoqualmie and North Bend, small logging communities about 50kms east of Seattle, in Washington State.

Our hosts during this stay were Lynda Lozner and Dale, her husband. Lynda has been very active on the blog almost from the start – and when she heard we were coming to the US she contacted me to see if we were coming up their way.

We met at the Tweed Cafe, now known as the Twin Peaks Cafe. If you’ve seen the tv series, this is where the Kyle MacLachlan character, an FBI agent, used to have his cherry pie and a damn fine cup of coffee.

Lynda and Dale greeted us at the cafe like long lost friends – huge hugs and laughter. They also gave us each a welcome pack full of local goodies, including coffee cups from the diner, which will be wonderful mementos.

This was our waitress – a lovely lass who very patiently allowed me to film the cheery pie, after she’d cut it, and with just the right amount of cherry dripping out.

We stayed until the diner closed and we were kicked out, then we continued our talking in a nearby bar.

The crazy thing about this blog is that when I finally get to meet some of you, I feel as though I’ve known you for yonks, yet of course you’re complete strangers. That was the case with Michael and Kathryn Schelsinger in Newport, Jill in Palm Springs, and now Dale and Lynda in Washington State.

The next day we drove into Seattle and met at the famous market – Pike Place. This is where Starbucks started up, and we dutifully had a coffee at the very first original Starbucks – a tiny dump of a place just opposite the markets.

There was a line of tourists out the door who wanted to see where this coffee empire started.

We then walked through the market – one of the great markets of the world – and had breakfast overlooking Puget Sound –

(the reason this shot below is so crappy is because I gave my camera to a woman sitting at the next booth and even though I set the exposure and focus correctly, she somehow managed to mess it up… and let’s not mention the headroom…)

We then drove to Snoqualmie, to visit the waterfall and the creepy lodge made famous in Twin Peaks.

We walked down to the bottom of the falls where several Japanese were taking photos – of course.

Then we walked back up to the top, which was considerably more difficult than walking down – then later that day we met up for dinner. Dinner was at Stan’s BBQ smokehouse in Issaquah –

I ordered the “Who’s your Daddy,” which consisted of enough meat to feed a small African nation. This photo below does not give you any indication of how big the portion was… there were three sausages hidden underneath the half pound of brisket.

Again we talked. We talked about the Camino, and we talked about intuition. Dale said he wasn’t at all intuitive. I asked him whether, when he first met Lynda, he’d had a gut feeling that this was the gal for him.

He said that yes, he definitely felt very strongly that she was. That’s your intuition, I told him, telling you you’ve met your life partner. Dale pondered this, and finally had to agree.

Lynda and Dale walked the Camino Frances last August, and it’s safe to say they haven’t been the same since. It’s had a profound impact on them. So much so that they’ve downsized, and are restructuring their life so they can walk more Caminos. They’ve even put their hand up to come on the Assisi Tour, should things work out.

Lynda, in anticipation of our coming, had done extensive research on Australia, Mudgee, and Jennifer and me. She and Dale had watched a few of my movies, and they knew all about Jennifer’s former life as an accomplished actress.

They both asked us a bunch of questions, which we were more than happy to answer, as best we could. They wanted to know all about Vegemite and Aussie Rules, and Dale even knew more than me about the coming game against the Gold Coast Suns!

They made us feel very special.

We said our goodbyes outside Stan’s BBQ and Jennifer and I walked away feeling that we’d met two very wonderful and courageous people – two people with a driving zest for life, and an extraordinary generosity of spirt.

(Lynda has prepared a guest post detailing her view of our two days together. I will put that up the blog tomorrow…)