Leavenworth: Christmas Tree Lighting

Every year Leavenworth, WA has a festival including a Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony. We took a bus trip and it turned out to be a wise idea because it snowed for most of the trip and the roads were pretty icy. There were also many busloads of people visiting for the Christmas festivities.

Leavenworth is a city that transformed itself in the 1960s to try to attract tourists and save its faltering economy. The entire town has been remodeled to appear like an alpine Bavarian village.

Bavarian Starbucks, one of the first stops for many tourists.

The main street including the Nut Cracker Museum.

G with a rare imported Pretzel Tree.

It was cold and snowy in Leavenworth.

The main street, including a massive line for the quirky Hat Shop (more later).

Hey, that isn't Bavarian! That's right, its the Australian Store. It had Tim Tams, Weetbix, Akubras and a few things I hadn't even seen before in Australia. It was all way too expensive for us cheap Aussies so we didn't buy anything.

After the tree lighting, all the stores in the village turned on their lights for a pretty effect.

G borrowed a quirky Christmas jester hat from J who shopped at the Hat Shop.

Seattle: Snow

According to a few locals I've spoken to, it doesn't really snow very often in Seattle. I'm not sure I believe them because on 1 Dec it snowed quite a lot. It was enough to cover everything, kick-start the whole Christmas season and cause some serious traffic chaos. We were lucky to make it back to our place on snow-covered roads. This is the first snow since February this year.

Coming from Canberra I was such a snow-tourist, going out to take photos that night and then again the following day. The snow lasted until mid afternoon and then it was gone, replaced with flooding rains. The major freeway (I-5) from Seattle-Portland was closed for a few days due to flooding, causing many trucks and commuters to take 180 mile detours.

We took a bus trip to Leavenworth and got back to find Tiny (our poor little car) covered with snow. G was lucky to have her favourite warm jumper (hoodie) on, a supporter's jumper for the Washington State Cougars.

Walking through my own little Winter Wonderland.

Snow-covered bushes.

Some of the deeper snow. Not really too bad, but it is more than I've seen in sunny Canberra.

Snow-covered rocks.

Our own little snow-dusted Christmas tree.

A memorial chair covered with snow.

Health: Computer = Not enough steps!

In the recovery area for the Seattle Marathon I picked up a free pedometer from a local radio station. I recalled reading that a healthy adult should take at least 10000 steps a day (it was also discussed in the movie Super Size Me) and thought that I would easily do more than that on an average day.

Well after wearing the pedometer for a week, I've determined that software engineers really do have to work to do that many steps. I started counting from the moment I left the house until I got into bed. One day I looked at my pedometer at lunch time and was shocked to see only a measly 500 steps taken!

Fortunately I was able to take an extra stroll in the afternoon to boost my steps, but for the week my lowest number of steps was ~4500 and my best was just over 10000. This included trips to the gym, but didn't include any games of soccer.

If you haven't counted your steps, get a cheap (or free) pedometer and give it a try. You might be surprised. While wearing it I've taken a few extra walks around Microsoft campus and avoided skipping the gym on 'low-step' days, which has got to be good for me.