Traveling for Memories

Traveling is one of the best summertime activities, I think, because the sun is out, the weather is warm, and school is out! (And there is a contest this summer, if you haven't heard! Click here to learn more!)

Shopping for souvenirs may be quite fun when traveling, but I personally like to collect more memories and experiences than fun trinkets. Like Nancy Drew, when I travel, I try new things, explore new places and taste new foods. To keep a snapshot of these memories, creating a scrapbook with random little pieces from the travel adventure is sure fun, but another way to remember those memories is to take...what else? Pictures!

This weekend I went traveling to the next city across from our office location: Seattle. Of course, I took flat Sonny with me to help add this memory to the travel log...and to also post this memory here!

My travel memory is this: I hunted for a restaurant close enough to the Space Needle so that I could take my picture from a safe, photo-friendly location and still get this icon in the background. Once I found a restaurant, I parked, went up to the sidewalk and turned around.

"Oh no!" I thought, staring up at the tall tower. "The sun is right next to it!" This is a horrible thing for anyone who knows two bits about photography: The sun will fill the camera with too much light and you won't get a very good shot. I only had 30 minutes to keep my car parked here, so I started to think. "Well, it's too late for lunch and too early for dinner, but I'll go inside for a drink...it sure is hot anyway," I said to myself, but not out loud 'cause that's silly.

After coming out of the restaurant with a blueberry-pomegranate smoothie, I leaned up against the building wall, looking at the Space Needle. Nuts. The sun hasn't moved much very far. I looked to my right and noticed that the shadow of the Space Needle was cast on the driveway of the restaurant, not far away. What a perfect place to stand to get a shot of the Space Needle without the sun blinding us! Not really. The restaurant driveway was a dangerous place to stand for a picture. Hmm. If I wait long enough, the shadow will move in my direction...

Standing up against the wall for another ten minutes enjoying the smoothie, I waited. Finally, the Space Needle shadow was on me and the sun had hidden behind the iconic tower. Yay! Photo-op!

Sonny--and Little Jackalope--wuz here!

As for the weekend puzzle, all you had to do was [turn the numbers into letters (A=1, B=2, C=3 and so on)] and then read it like a [rail fence cipher (up, down then left to right).] Voila! Your answer!

This hints to something we are working on behind the scenes.

~Little Jackalope~