Snowpocalypse 2023

 We survived the storm of the century! The first ever "blizzard"!! We spent 5 days at home (1 sick day, 2 snow days, plus weekend) and had several short walks and did some shoveling. Mostly we laid around :)

Here are pics in chronological order more or less:

                Wednesday        

                        Thursday

                            Friday

                                Saturday

                        Sunday (storm over!!)

BUT MORE TO COME THIS WEEK!!!!! I. HATE. WINTER!!!!!

Summer 2022

 On this, my last day of summer break (basically), I thought I'd take a moment to reflect on a very good summer (this will be long - I should have blogged more of this individually!). It was an excellent mix of getting stuff done and sitting around doing nothing. Productive yet relaxing. I'd like another week or two of course. But I think I'm ready.

Where I went:

Started with an EXCELLENT girls weekend with Karie in Palm Springs. We sat by the pool for endless hours, chatting, laughing, being still. It was glorious. We ate good food, drank, and laughed and laughed. It was exactly what I needed without knowing I needed it!

Couple of weeks later, Slugger and I had a nice, short road trip to San Diego. He put his feet in the water and had lots of small walks. He was VERY good in the hotel. On the drive home we went the very long way and had several good walks and snacks. 

As has kind of become tradition, I spent the 4th of July weekend in Temecula with the Whites. As always, MUCH fun was had and memories were made. We had tea, discovered a great used book store, antiqued and laughed - that was day one. On Sunday Thomas and I had a breakfast outing and then he went with me to Walmart (such a trooper, my Godson!). Then Karie and Ben and I went to a speakeasy (yes!) so I could enjoy my first professional Bees Knees - SO good! That night we all went to the Lake Elsinore Storm game. They lost but the fireworks were nice. I went home the next day. SO MUCH FUN!!

My summer ends with another trip to San Diego tomorrow for an AVID conference. Not really vacation, but going to enjoy the swanky hotel!

What I did:

I gave myself a LONG to-do list and spent ALL summer slowly making my way through it. First, I dealt with the weeds and then I cleaned the house. Like really cleaned. Then it got fun :) I ordered 8 tons of gravel and ended up having to spend a LOT more time than I expected moving it to where I wanted it. But now I can park not in mud on the lower side of the house in the winter. I also am on the schedule to get the house painted and for the whole house generator to be installed. Oh, I stained the "new" buffet. I also re-adhered the cork in the she-cave after it all fell down. That wasn't planned! Plus a bunch of little things like shredding a bunch of old documents.

I FINALLY hiked up Sugarloaf Mountain! I was alone (saw one other person the whole trip) and hiked - poles, boots and all. It was difficult but I'd do it again!

I ran. And I ran. I FINALLY figured out the toe blister thing and so I was able to up my mileage quite quickly. Maybe too quickly at the end. BUT I accomplished an actual, literal bucket list item... I ran 26.2 miles - a marathon! From my house to Little Bear Springs, with Cougar Crest in the middle. (That was a stupid idea, btw). Ultras, here I come :)

I think that's about it. Slugger and I walked almost every day - he even got up to a 1.67 neighborhood outing! We hung out with Dad. We drove to the PO a lot. We watched a LOT of TV (Alias, Blossom, Bones). It was a VERY GOOD summer!!! 

School's Out Road Trip 2021

 Because the world is only sort of opening up, and because I wanted Slugger to come too, I decided to take a little road trip as soon as school was out. The plan was to camp the first 3 nights and then motel the last night. As with any good road trip, plans changed. 

Slugs and I set out about noon on the Monday after school was out. 

I had run the HVTR 15 miler on Saturday and my toes HURT. I also had a weird foot pain that could've been a stress fracture (feels better but still not 100% so who knows). About 2 hours into the drive I started to realize that driving wasn't helping and I had no desire to set up camp. SO I got online and reserved a room in Bishop. This was a little further than we had been planning for the day. But without all the stops to hike/walk we got there about dinner time anyway. Once we were in Bishop, I changed up the rest of the trip too and it all worked out marvelously. 

Anyway, the trip: We stopped in Lone Pine at Gardners hardware which hasn't changed. I didn't shop long though because Slugs was in the hot car and my feet hurt. And it was crowded. 

After a decent night's sleep in Bishop, we went to a local bakery recommended by a friend who used to live there. We went to the local park to eat. We sat on a bench in the shade in front of a small pond, watching the ducks and enjoying the green grass. It was splendidly relaxing. 

From Bishop we drove North. We saw a lot of amazing scenery and sang a lot of good songs with the radio blaring. 

We stopped in Mammoth Lakes and had a little hike. Pretty sure Slugger thought we were back home - it smelled the same, looked a lot like it, and was finally almost not hot.

Next we stopped to look over Mono Lake.

The next stop was one of Slugger's favorites! A river!! I *think* it was the West Fork of the American River. I'm took lazy to look it up. 

THEN Slugger went to Nevada for the first time!!!

I decided that we should go over to Lake Tahoe and drive up the CA side. I forgot about all the casinos on the NV side. Weird. And two totally different places on each side of the state line. Once we were back in CA though, we got out so Slugger could swim again :)

Driving up to Truckee from Tahoe was a lot like driving at home. Slugger even thought so and kept getting excited. I was really tired of driving on foreign mountain roads though. Strange that I do it all the time here at home but there it made me nervous - I guess because I wasn't familiar with the terrain.

We spent Tuesday night in Auburn. I am familiar with Auburn due to Western States. I wanted to take Slugger to see some of the trails and sights. When Dad and I are there for the race, we don't usually see much more than our aid station. After driving into Forest Hill and talking to Dad, we drove back into Auburn and went to Robie Point. This is the VERY end of WSER. Where they come off the trail and hit the last mile of uphill on road. It was a very steep road, as advertised. 

We followed these footprints up the road to the high school track that they run around to the finish.

I don't remember the track being quite so fancy! That's TURF!!

After we left Auburn, we drove down I5 to Stockton to take a walk around University of the Pacific, my alma mater. I kinda felt like I was doing one of those trips where the parent drags their kids to all the places they lived growing up. Pacific was nice and quiet and beautiful as ever. Lots and lots of grass for puppy to roll in and even a well-watered tree! 

Then we had an excellent visit with Christy (freshman year roomie and forever bestie) at her house. Slugs got to meet Tobie (totally chill older lab/pug mix). 

Thursday we drove home. We were both done driving. And tired of the heat (hot at home but not THAT hot!)

Not the trip we set out on, but definitely an excellent trip!!