This week has been marked on my calendar for many months now.  Tomorrow my patient and understanding wife will take me to the jetport extra early where I’ll board a flight to Seattle.  I’ll be there a week, where I’ll stay with one of my oldest and best friends and get to see some others from our old home.  

It’s ironic that with the weather so nice in Portland that I’m going to a place where the weather is rainy.  But, I’m on vacation.  We’ll be heading to Leavenworth, Washington (a bizarre but cool little Bavarian-themed town tucked into some of the most beautiful scenery you’ll ever see) to do some hiking and camping.  There, in the rainshadow of the Cascades, it’ll be cold but dry.

The trip isn’t all fun; it’s business, too.  While there I’ll be attending a couple photography seminars and spending time with a great magazine photographer, Brian Smale.  I’ll also have an opportunity to work on a personal photography project–the subject of which will be part of a later post.