Northwest Review

I never did post the pictures from my interview tour to the Northwest. It was beautiful and we really lucked out on the weather. I would like to go back to the Portland, Seattle, Vancouver areas and explore more on my own when I don't feel like my every move is being scrutinized by potential employers. Even though that was the case, I had a lot of fun and met a lot of great people.

First, it was a lot of fun because I was pleasantly surprised to find a couple people I knew on the tour. Brandon, who is a Texas native and toured with me in Alaska, showed up with his long johns on to keep warm in the 50 degree weather!

Trisha, from Miami, also was on the tour and she was in Alaska, too! She and I are in front of Mt. St. Helens.

I met a number of wonderful people. The great thing about tour directing is our varied backgrounds. There aren't many that set out on life's path to do this job. Everyone has such an interesting story. Here we are in front of the Vancouver, B.C. skyline.

Talk about varied backgrounds, this great lady, Jessica, was in the Army and her husband is still serving.

In Portland we visited the Rose Test Gardens and the Japanese Gardens. My favorite was the Japanese Gardens. It's a very simple, green arrangement and well manicured. I'm sure I would have enjoyed the rose garden more if they were in bloom. Notice the crane sculptures in the rocks by the pond.

While in Vancouver we visited the Capilano area, which has the Capilano suspension bridge. I believe Capilano is a name of one of the area's First Nations (what we call Native Americans). The bridge is built with cable and definitely wobbles. It was all I could do to not rock on the bridge!

Vancouver is a temperate rainforest, so the weather is quite mild year around, but it is also very wet. You can tell there's a lot of moss growing on the trees in the area.

We ended the tour in Seattle, and what's a stop there without the Space Needle? We didn't go up it, but I got a decent shot.