Hi Eric,
Bainbridge Island is pretty much due West of Seattle, just across Puget Sound. We're about 140 miles south of Vancouver, BC and the climates are pretty similar.
The camera is a Canon EOS Rebel T2i with a Sigma 18-200mm 1:3.5-6.3 lens, I got it just before last Christmas and I'm still experimenting a lot to get things right. I probably do need to get another lens for landscape and macro shots - that will give me a greater depth of field for the landscape particularly.
You can actually control the slide show speed - if you look in the upper left corner when the thumbnails are displayed - there's a slow-med-fast option. Which might give you even more time -- hovering over a picture with your mouse also pauses the show I think.