nature

This morning when I arrived at work I was greeted by a praying mantis peeking in at me through my window. That is more pleasant than being greeted by lots of stink bugs, which we also have around here.

productive

Today has been a very productive Saturday. I did some reading (though not quite as much as I was hoping to do...), got my car inspected, took my recycling to the recycling center, went by the bank, took out the trash, picked up around my apartment (including unpacking and putting away the last few things from our camping trip two weeks ago), dusted, vacuumed, swept, cleaned the bathroom, and mopped. Whew. Now I plan to read a tiny bit more, then go out for drinks with Josh to reward myself for all this cleaning. And tomorrow? I will read in my clean apartment for most of the day.

Zozobra

If you don't know about Zozobra, a Santa Fe tradition in which a very large puppet is burned in front of a giant screaming crowd, you can learn about it here.

I learned from Facebook friends that tonight was Zozobra, and I also learned that a New Mexico news station was streaming it live. So I started to watch. Then I called my brother Ryan and turns out he was watching it, too. So we watched it together, from Charlottesville and Flagstaff. That was fun.

Labor Day Weekend Camping

This past holiday weekend Josh and I headed for the mountains. It was pretty great.

We went to Sherando Lake and luckily got the last spot available on Saturday. We set up camp, ate some lunch, and then went for a mini-hike around the lake. While Josh took an afternoon nap I read about history (hello grad school!), and then we made dinner. Saturday night was capped off with a blue grass concert down at the amphitheater.




Josh is a very fashionable camper. He is also well prepared. Check out the bug spray he has ready for me!

Sunday we had a relaxing morning (I read more), then went for an eight mile hike along Torry Ridge. It was a little scary because we kept seeing bear droppings on the trail, but I made sure we made lots of noise and kept asking the bears to please stay away while we passed. We hiked and hiked and hiked and when we finally got to the end, or what we thought must be the end, we stopped for lunch. It wasn't until we hiked back down that I looked at the map again and discovered we didn't go all the way to the Bald Mountain Overlook.






This was towards the top. In case you don't think it looks very high, that green mountain behind me is across a deep gorge or valley or something.

After the hike we rested a little more (I read), gathered a little wood for our marshmallow-roasting fire, and then made dinner. The evening was spent trying to get our little fire to survive and roasting marshmallows.

Monday we had another relaxing morning (I read more), then made breakfast and packed up camp. After leaving our site at 11 we went back to the lake. We laid on the grass and read for about an hour, then went for a swim to the island that our guide book said was 1/4 mile away but Josh says couldn't have been that far. I swam back and forth to the island again after that. Then we showered (yay for bathhouses!) and headed back home (so I could read more).



The weather was perfect (t-shirt weather during the day, grateful for a warm sleeping bag weather at night), and it was a beautiful weekend.