Kim says it was hard leaving Helena, after Linda spent most of a week spoiling her rotten. And I'm already missing the daily hikes around the hills (and down to the pub) with Tim. Unexpectedly, I'll be seeing Tim again next week, though, on the other side of the world -- Taipei, Taiwan. More on that a little later...
We left Helena after I finished my work on Wednesday. Actually, I rode shotgun and hacked a new feature into Musica for Pete Graner. Meanwhile, Kim drove us across eastern Montana, Idaho, and into Spokane, Washington. Arriving late, we cooked macaroni and cheese (Kimmie's choice) on the camp stove in the hotel room. Mmm.
I worked Thursday morning from the hotel, and Thursday afternoon from the Starbucks across the street. We left Spokane in the early evening, heading for Seattle. Once again, I spent most of that time in the passenger seat catching up on some offline programming.
We passed decent sized wind farm. I'm a "fan" of alternative energy :-)
You can see the heavy clouds above the desert. And once we started passing through the Cascades, Washington weather greeted us in the standard fashion. The blur you see below is Kim's windshield wiper. It took a few shots before I timed this one right.
I also spent a solid hour on the phone with Sprint. Finally, after 3 months, I have managed to convince them that some is actually wrong with my phone, and I have a service ticket number. We raced into Redmond before the Sprint store closed so that they could examine the phone. They ran a quick diagnostic and confirm what I've suspected since July -- the antenna is fault. Sweet. I have a replacement on order, due to arrive on Monday. Awesome.
We left sprint to spend the night with our good friends Mike and Tressa, and their adorable daughter, Bella. We had an excellent spread of Indian food for dinner, and Kim and I were endlessly entertained by little Bella's antics.
Mike and I caught up on all a few years gone by of missed dorkitude and technology. We worked together in the LTC Security Team long ago, and he's one of the original authors of eCryptfs. He showed me his new project, working on Bitlocker for Microsoft. Its integration with the TPM chip is impressive. I showed him Byobu and a key escrow service I've been working on. Meanwhile, Tressa and Kim bonded over sewing, arts, and crafts.
Mike did his nightly workout, curling Bella, followed by push-ups with Bella on his back :-) Tressa, Kim, and I watched observantly, sipping our hot cocoa and counting off the repetitions.
I got up early on Friday morning, and started my work day. I did receive an unexpected call, though. After a short discussion, I booked tickets to Taipei, Taiwan for this coming Tuesday. I'm giving a presentation on the Ubuntu Server and Ubuntu Cloud offerings at the Ubuntu Hardware Summit 2010 event. Whoa. So Kim is going to drop me off at the Seattle airport on Tuesday afternoon, and pick me up in Portland on Friday night. Quick trip. Meanwhile, it sounds like Tressa is going to take care of my gal. Thanks so much, Tressa!
We left Bellevue, WA mid-day, and proceeded across a ferry, heading toward Port Angeles. I worked from a couple of coffee shops along the way, spending much of my time booking my travel for next week's last-minute trip.
We arrive in Port Angeles in the early afternoon, and I holed up in a coffee shop for the rest of the work day. A guy played a harp in the corner -- mostly classical stuff, but I think I detected a couple of Beatles songs in there, actually.
Eventually, we caught the 5:15pm ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria, in British Columbia, Canada. The boat was huge, holding a great number of cars. We wandered around the deck for some of the 90 minute ride.
The view back toward the mountains shows them cloaked in layers of fog and clouds, exuding a unique tranquility.
Here we are, at the back of the ferry, with Washington (and the United States) to our back.
After passing through customs on the Canadian side, we stayed at a decent hotel called The Huntington. After I finished up a few work items, we set out in a drizzling rain for dinner. We landed at an oyster bar, quite plainly called, The Oyster. It's a brightly colored, trendy place. Being the money beets we are, we sat at the bar, right up front, in the center. We had a friendly (though busy) bartender, who served us well. I sampled all 6 of the fresh, raw oysters they had on hand that night, as well as a couple of pints of the local pale ale (perhaps the most nutty, toffee flavored pale ale I've ever had). Kim tore through some crab dip. I received a stern warning about how "hot" the chipolte shrimp tacos are, which I summarily dismissed, noting that I'm from Texas. Honestly, it had a bit of spice, but nothing worth throwing warning flags about.
But the creme de la creme was our dessert -- a suspect looking bananas foster. Further explaining to our waiter that not only were we from Texas, we were really from Baton Rouge and New Orleans, bananas foster must be served flambet (ie, on fire). Unfortunately, local fire codes prevent that from happening. I will say their magic concoction was quite tasty though. To our delight, we have bananas, brown sugar, and butter drizzled over a sweet crepe encasing vanilla ice cream. Call it what you want ("inspired" by bananas foster, perhaps), it was damn tasty!
And that was pretty much our first night in Victoria. We're here again tonight, and hopefully we see a bit more of what the area has to offer.
:-Dustin
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