Despite what you may have heard to the contrary, there is more to Washington state than lattes, rain, and Microsoft. Washington is actually such a diverse state that it could have served as a model for the song "America the Beautiful." Out in the eastern high desert country, there are beautiful spacious skies as big as Montana's (part of the Rocky Mountains even reaches into Washington). In the Cascades, there are mountains that turn majestically purple at sunset. In the Palouse country of the southeastern corner of the state, amber waves of grain stripe the steep hillsides. In the Yakima, Wenatchee, and Chelan valleys, the fruited plains produce the world's most familiar apples (and some pretty good wine, too). Out on the Pacific Coast, there are beaches white with foam, and with an inland sea across the Olympic Peninsula from the Pacific, the sun in Washington shines from sea to shining sea. From its mountains to its valleys, Washington is indeed beautiful country.