Goodbye Seattle

Everyone knew I liked Rochester, but I thought I could stay away for more than 3 months! Anyway, I've been trying to soak up all the art and culture around here before I leave all too soon to get married and start a new job. 

Some of the important places: Columbia Center Sky View (where one can see the whole of Seattle from this Bank of America tower, including the surrounding islands),  the Chocolate Festival (two days of chocolate making, manufacturing, and tasting. We made it to one talk on how to correctly "taste" chocolate, and then promptly abandoned the program to shovel tons of free samples into our mouths).  Things like dark chocolate, milk chocolate, caramels, truffles, and chocolate with weird additives, like spirulina, ginger, or pomegranate. , Seattle Art Museum, and the Pacific Science Museum (this was a good one! There was a touch pool filled with squishy sea anemones,  moving dinosaurs, space and star stuff, interactive puzzle tables, an entire insect exhibit, and even a live butterfly room.  The King Tut exhibit was ok too).

Tibetan momos. 

Fort Lewis Army Base:  My ID was checked by a friendly soldier from...guess where...Rochester, MN! Once inside, BG let me try on his gear.  I think the vest itself was 15-20 pounds. With all the rest of the gear and a full backpack, soldiers can carry around 70 pounds. And no, that is just a toy gun and I'm holding it all wrong.

Here we are looking SE at the the Harborview Medical Center 

(the inspiration for Seattle Grace Hospital in Grey's Anatomy)

Chocolate festival: a demonstration of grinding the hand picked, sun dried cacao bean. 

Free for all gluttons 

The Burke Natural History Museum (right on UW campus, actually): I never thought about this, but obviously no one really knows what color the dinosaurs were.

Cow's Skull on Red, by Georgia O'Keefe

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Co-op Merger in Industry News

It's kind of cool to see the food co-op merger getting some more attention recently: 

http://www.cooperativegrocer.coop/articles/2012-09-25/working-together-our-mutual-benefit

An excerpt:  "Food co-ops are experts at doing things the hard way. We are grassroots organizations—it comes with the territory. People’s Food Co-op (PFC) in La Crosse, Wis., and the Rochester Good Food Co-op in Rochester, Minn., decided to take advantage of current resources by working together for our mutual benefit. We traded some old challenges for new ones along the way—but through the process we hope to gain additional insights about co-op development for others in our sector to consider."