The first stage of our Sabbatical was taking the month of July to travel the US.

We started with July 4th in Washington State with Vera's family, relaxing by a lake near Mount St. Helens with day trips into other parts of Washington and Oregon (Astoria, Olympia, McMinnville).

We ate very well this trip. We highly recommend:

The motivation for coming to the Pacific Northwest was to visit Sisters, Oregon for the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show. 

The show is the biggest outdoor quilt show in the world, with 1000+ quilts and 10,000 visitors taking over every surface in the small downtown of this town of only 2000 people. This was Vera and Andrew's 4th year attending, but it was the 50th anniversary of the show and a special celebration for Jean Wells, the woman who started the show, so it was even bigger than usual. 

Vera didn't have a quilt in the show this year due to time constraints, but she certainly photographed a lot of quilts! Check out the 

Google photos album of Vera's top 100 quilts

Washington State and Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show