Why people don’t vacation in WA in the winter

During the summer months our more popular tourist attractions see a glut of outsiders.? Those that carry umbrellas and cross against the lights.? During the winter months things are quiet and they let us enjoy our rain in peace.? Then there are years like this year where Mother Nature dumps a bunch of snow on top of us and we have no clue what to do with it.? Hell… the city of Seattle only owns 23 snow plows, and city workers in Olympia don’t know that the blade of the plow actually goes on the ground, not on top of the snow.

We said a little prayer that the snow would melt enough for us to make it up north so we could spend a few days sleeping on a futon that was too short for the trusty husband and me sneezing my brains out.? Turns out we were lucky and every road was clear from our house to the bustling town of LaConner, WA.? You’ll recall that we spent part of our spring break there as well.? It’s just that we don’t have tons of money (*cough* new stove) to spend on a fancy bona fide vacation so we go stay with friends.

Despite the fact that Sam and Cari had to work while we were there we had a great time.? We took the Wii and that provided hours of entertainment and got us away from the usual cards and drinking.? My liver thanked me.

We had a lovely meal in Monday night and were left to our own devices most of Tuesday.? We took the opportunity to visit a local art store that has the best prices on canvas and then drove further north for lunch.? I would have to say we are some of the only people I know who would drive an additional 30 minutes north just for a bagel sandwich.? It was worth it.? It was even better to take the boy to his first Bagelry experience.? He wasn’t overly impressed, but I had a grand ol’ nostalgic time.? On the way back to La Conner we took the scenic route down Chuckanut drive.? The most beautiful road in Washington State if you ask me.

The vacation was going quite well until Tuesday night while playing a rousing game of Wii tennis.? BLAM.? No power.? Lemme just say that it is mighty dark out in the boonies.? I don’t mind power outages that much, but this one was the result of a fairly major wind storm.? When you are in an area with giant trees and strong winds it is a bit scary.? The wind finally died down and the power came back on around 1:30 and I finally got some sleep, even if it was with both of my arms being numb from my back hurting.

Despite the power outage the vacation was lovely.? We had a nice visit with friends.? I couldn’t ask for more.

I want to wish all of you a Happy New Year.? I am working on the direction of this blog and posting will continue to be light for a while.? January is a tough month for me and I’m trying to keep my thin grip on sanity.? That means more Lincoln Logs and less stat counters.