Sun Valley, ID

Had a great couple of days at the potato convention in Sun Valley (for work of course!)! The resort was beautiful and the weather was perfect. Heading back to Seattle where it is 55 degrees and cloudy. If you ever want a fantastic vacation, I recommend Sun Valley Resort!

Here are photos from the plane, of the swans in the front lake, the year-round outdoor ice skating rink, and the beautiful scenery. The highlight if the convention? The giant potato truck!

Hood Canal

Went over a neat floating bridge to cross Hood Canal. The noise of the grates woke sleepy Max up :-)

Hood Canal is rumored to be a good diving spot - but after seeing the murky chilly waters, we will wait for Hawaii!

Hoh Rainforest

A lot of moss and a lot of ferns! Very lush and green and stunning scenery with the sunlight dappling through the branches. We went down to the Hoh River, but after seeing a snake and thinking we heard a bear, we ran for the car!!

Side trip to South Beach

Amazing little beach spot of US 101 - the pugs had a blast (until the COLD water hit them on the paws)!

PS - watch out for bears!

Olympic National Park

Beautiful! We are driving through Quinault Rain Forest now.

Gas is $4.23/gal here!

Olympia

Olympia is the capital city of the US state of Washington and the county seat of Thurston County. It was incorporated on January 28, 1859. The population was 46,478 at the 2010 census. Olympia is a major cultural center of the Puget Sound region.

Fact: Kurt Cobain wrote most of Nirvana's "Nevermind" album while living in Olympia.

The climate of Olympia is a Marine West Coast climate. Most of western Washington's weather is brought in by weather systems that form near the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. It contains cold moist air, which brings western Washington cold rain, cloudiness, and fog. Olympia averages 50.8 inches of precipitation per year and has a year-round average of 75% cloud cover. According to one MSNBC study, Olympia had more rainy days per year on average over the past 30 years than any city in the lower 48 states.

Legend

Earlier today Ross got a hankering to watch the 1980's flick "Legend". He was able to find instant gratification on iTunes with a $2.99 rental (what a coincidence!). We prepared for our amazing movie night. However as Ross went to play the movie (he was SO excited) we discovered there was some sort of privacy error message. We called Apple support and lo and behold we had to buy an "Apple TV" to enable the iTunes content to play on our regular TV. Apple TV hardware, of course, is conveniently located at our nearest Apple Store. So Ross gets into the car and an hour later he is back with the $100 Apple TV and $20 connector cable. We are now officially watching our most expensive movie rental ever....$123 for "Legend"....wow.

PS - Best quote of the movie:
"May be innocent, may be sweet....ain't half as nice as rotting meat."

Prepping the pug buggy

Ross prepped the pug stroller for tomorrow's big day trip to the Olympic Peninsula/Rainforest! He put more "aggressive" wheels on it, raising it by 4 inches! Guess we will need more ground clearance? More to come on the trip - 7 hours driving the loop!

PS - took a picture with Max standing by for perspective!

The Impala

My company car arrived today - shipped all the way from Atlanta! She's a beauty - a 2007 Chevy Impala with 140,000 miles on her. Should be interesting in the mountains this winter....

PS - the little schnauzer is "Mister Mister" and accompanies the driver across the country!