---For Immediate Release---

The Northwest Corner will be closed until August 12, while Rainier96, (its publisher) sets off on a quixotic quest, hiking coast to coast across England. Rainier96 observes that, at this very moment and for the next few weeks, the climate of Seattle and its surroundings has (and will have) achieved its peak of perfection. Few places on earth can equal the Northwest Corner for beauty. Few places have a better and more elaborate network of hiking trails.

Rainier96 also takes care to point out that the forecast over the next two weeks for that portion of England to which he adjourns calls for rain showers virtually daily, with temperatures never to exceed 65 degrees.

His dampish hike, and his departure from the Northwest Corner, thus become what can only be called a bitter and dismal study in irony.

But a man's got to do what a man's got to do. Stiff upper lip, and all that. Note your calendars for mid-August.