The membership fee is only $80 a year which gives you access any time to the club’s private range.  For the $80 you also have to do work hours, or you can pay $300 and not do any work hours. Check out the new site for pictures of the range.

Archery is a fun family activity.  We were looking for activities we could do with our teenagers that weren’t “lame” and they decided archery was pretty much fun.  Check it out!

The club also has a blog you can read for more info.

I came across this quotes and thought about how true this is.  People really do often want what they can’t have easily.

In science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs. – Osler

This is also unfortunately too true as well.  Apple Computer is a good example of this.  Many of the ideas came that made the original Apple computers popular actually came from  Xerox Corporation’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).  I guess the people at PARC  didn’t really know what they had.  It took Steve Jobs and his showmanship skills to turn the ideas at PARC into a well marketed product.

http://psychology.wichita.edu/optimal/default.htm

And best of all, their prices are MUCH LESS expensive than Whole Foods.  Trader Joe’s prices are actually cheaper than the regular grocery store prices for many products, and they are usually healthier for you, too.

Other Alternatives to Whole Foods: 1. Amazon – I get organic coffee, sulfite free dried apricots, Izze “soda” made with mineral water and fruit juice, nuts and other natural foods from here at reasonable prices. 2.  Safeway – the ones near us carry organic produce, some organic meats and their own brand of organic products like ketchup, canned fruits, canned soup, mustard and more.  3. Costco – the one near our house has organic pasta, pasta sauce, chicken, greens, apples, and more. It isn’t a huge selection but the prices are great on what they do carry.  The organic chicken breats are around $6.00 a pound compared to $8 – 9.00 at the regular grocery stores.

One blog comment I read was that an anti-healthcare mom was going to START shopping at Whole Foods for her family of 8.  That will last about one shopping trip until she sees she just spent double of what she’d spend at Safeway for the same amount of food.   They don’t call the place Whole Paycheck for no reason.

So shop at Trader Joe’s for healthy food, low prices and a CEO who isn’t trying to prevent poor people from having access to health care.  Or making unethical fake blog posts.

Now the New York Times is reporting a nationwide shopping rebellion at Whole Foods.  They report that the first rule of business is to know your customers.   Most of Whole Foods customers apparently are staunch liberals in favor of health care legislation.  Oops!

I used to shop at Whole Foods when they were the only place in town to buy organic foods.  But now you can get organic foods even at places like Safeway and Costco, so why pay the outrageously high prices at Whole Foods anyway?  I stopped shopping there years ago just to save money.

I feel compelled to write this review because there are so many reviews on the Internet talking about how breath taking the gardens were and how extraordinary they are.  Don’t believe them.  I suspect those reviews must either be from paid marketing shills or people who don’t get out much.  It took us hours of ferry and driving time each way to get there and back from our Seattle hotel and it sure wasn’t worth the hassle.

If you are in the area of Butchart Gardens, instead of spending your hard earned money on an over priced tourist trap, take a half hour on the ferry and see Olympic National Park.  The hike on Hurricane Ridge has one of the most spectacular views I’ve ever seen in my life.  And you can go there for about $5 per car instead of almost $30 a person.  There are deer strolling around everywhere and they seem to peacefully coexist with all of the hikers. A nature lover could easily spend a whole week at Olympic National Park and not be bored.

Here is a link to a web cam on Hurricane Ridge.

Another cool hike, and this one is totally free, is to Marymere Falls.  We have hiked this trail twice and each time had deer sauntering right along the path with us.

The popularity of Butchart Gardens versus Olympic National Park is a testament to the power of marketing.  If you want to get good value for your money and avoid another tourist trap, skip the gardens with their overhyped reviews, expensive entrance fees,  artificial fountains and boring flower beds and head on over for some amazing natural scenery at Olympic National Park.

I had made smoothies for my kids this last week with nonorganic peaches and after reading this list wished I had gotten only the organic freeezer fruits for them.

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. ~ Antoine de Saint Exupery

It is easier to ask forgiveness than to seek permission. ~ Proverb

The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings and that these individuals are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder and be murdered in quarrels not their own ~ Aldous Huxley