Right above California and right below Canada is the technological and coffee consumption centre of the world – the Pacific Northwest. Tag-team states Washington and Oregon are contained in this lush, misty area of the USA.

Home to Boeing, Intel, Microsoft, Starbucks and Amazon.com, the Pacific Northwest is the epicentre of the impending corporate take-over of life, as we know it. It’s also quite lovely when it isn’t raining.

The most notable locale in the Pacific Northwest is Seattle - home to Bill Gates, a bunch of Microsoft big wigs, baseball star Ken Griffey, Jr., sax player and punchline Kenny G, Kurt Cobain’s body, Eddie Vedder and what remains of the grunge rock movement.

Where one finds wealth (Seattle, for example), one finds wealthy arts patrons. Where one finds wealthy arts patrons, one finds artists. Where one find artists, one inevitably findscoffee houses. If it weren’t for Seattle, over-priced, burnt coffee and coffee shops might never have become en vogue.

Seattle’s weather certainly leaves something to be desired. It rains about 350 days a year – give or take. Natives of the region never know when summer will occur. Last year, it happened during an afternoon nap to the disappointment of many. If the sun ever peeps out from behind the clouds, Seattle’s residents begin to screech and jump around like the monkeys dancing around the obelisk in the beginning of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’.

The region’s salmon () are just plain stupid. Unlike their Atlantic brethren, Pacific salmon have made a habit of travelling upwards of 1000 miles to the place of their birth to spawn. After depositing or fertilising their eggs, the salmon die () hoping their offspring make it back to the sea to perpetuate the process.

Few things are as beautiful as a Pacific Sunset, so make sure you take in at least one during your visit to the coast. Seeing the sun is somewhat rare, so blame Mother Nature if you don’t.

The Pacific Northwest is also somewhat explosive. The volcanic peak of Mount Saint Helens, located in south-west Washington and part of the Cascade Range, erupted on May 18, 1980 in one of the largest volcanic explosions in the history of the North American continental plate. After a crack appeared along the mountain’s north side, a bunch of rock fell, followed by a blast of stone, ash and poison gas from the mountain. Landslides ensued and carried debris nearly 20mi. Five dozen people in addition to hundreds of elk, deer, bear and coyotes were killed by the angry mountain. It also destroyed miles of vegetation. A week later, a second eruption rocked the mountain, and then again on April 11, 1981. The moral of the story is: ‘Don’t make your home on a live volcano.’

Very large trees cover the Pacific Northwest. We’re talking huge here. Big trees attract lumber and paper companies, then the big trees disappear to make Big Mac wrappers and broomsticks.

The people of the Pacific Northwest are a fairly laid back bunch. Kind of paradoxical when you consider the number of coffee shops per capita.