Good morning. We went to the Gorge the weekend before last. The trip over from Seattle was nice and short! My parents drove up to Seattle the night before and stayed with us, then I rode over with them Friday morning, and Spencer worked on Friday and came over on Saturday. The campsite that I reserved was a good one. The weather was beautiful when we arrived, though it got very windy at our campground for the next few days. It wasn't cold, which was good, but the wind is still tiring. Wayne and Tracey brought a tent shelter that we could sit in, though, and that was very helpful.

The concerts were tons of fun, of course. I attended with Wayne on Friday night. On Saturday night, Spencer and I had floor seats. The set list on Saturday was awesome, one of the best I have ever heard. Over the three nights, the band didn't repeat even a single song, meaning that we heard all different songs each of the three nights. On Sunday night we had a good time sitting in the amphitheater lawn with my folks. Camping with Wayne, Tracey, Owen, Sabrina and Lucas was great, and we were bummed when they all had to leave a day early.

Spencer and I stopped in the town of Roslyn on our way back to Seattle. That's the town where the show Northern Exposure was filmed. It still looks just like it did when they filmed the show (obviously at least partly preserved for tourist value) and it felt a little weird to be there, because it was like being on a film set or something. We have watched a couple episodes since we were there, and it's funny now to see things on the program that we saw there in person, often just in the background behind whatever is going on.

I went to Victoria last Tuesday for the 1st World Seabird Conference. I rode the city bus from our neighborhood in Seattle to the downtown waterfront, and caught the Clipper ferry there for a ride over to the island. The conference was held at the Victoria Conference Center right downtown behind the Empress hotel. As implied in its name, it was the first time this conference had convened, and my boss, Bill, was one of the people who worked from the start to get it planned and going. The whole process took 4 years from start to finish. The conference was the best that I've ever attended. There were over 800 people there from all around the world. The conference center had great service. For example, there was coffee and tea three times a day! Then we had two poster sessions in the evenings, and those were catered with plenty to eat. Those details make a lot of difference when you're attending conferences. Tote bags are standard conference souvenirs, but the ones we were given at this conference were awesome. They were decorated with painted shapes of seabirds, but EVERY one was different. They were designed and made by a group of volunteers (I sat next to one of those people at the banquet dinner, who told me all of this). They made sponge stamps of about 8 different birds, and stamped 1000 bags. So, since they were handmade, all 1000 were unique. The one I got has three blue penguins on it. I was very impressed by this effort and it was fun to see all the different bags people had around the meeting over the course of the week.

Also at the conference I knitted a very pretty small shawl. I'm excited to block (set) it and it should make a very nice fall accessory. My other new item from the conference is a photo that I won in the silent auction for only $50. It's a photo of a BC lighthouse, though digitally enhanced to appear like a watercolor painting. I liked it, and that's the first time I've ever participated in an auction. Its value was $160, and I was surprised to be the winner. It will look nice in our new house. The auction was a fundraiser for the next conference, so that's a good place to put a little money.

I made it back to Seattle on Sunday totally exhausted and happy to be back with Spencer. Yesterday I ran around Seattle all day taking care of my DMV business. I had to go downtown to get a new drivers license. Then I went somewhere else to do the smog testing on the car. I had a hard time finding that place and when I did, I learned I didn't have to do that part of the process. Then I had to go find a recycling center where I could get my car weighed. That took forever because I couldn't find that place either. The address didn't exist, but I finally figured out that it was on the northern end of the street, while I was on the southern end. After that I went to the plate licensing office. Washington state farms that job out to other businesses. So I got my registration and plates at a stingy little office of a used car dealership. After that I needed to do some shopping. Not knowing exactly how to get to all the places took a lot of time. It took me almost 5 hours to get the dmv stuff done, and then I did some but not all of the shopping and errands that needed to be done. It was a tiring and frustrating day. The good news is that the dmv stuff, overall, was simpler and much cheaper to accomplish than it was in California.