Yachats Trip

I've done it again!! More than a week has gone by since Nathan and I made a great trip to the Norther West. We spent last weekend in Yachats with Dad and Joy, and had a delightful time. We ate more dairy products than is decent. I had ice cream every day (Tillamook, Chocolate and Peanut Butter if you must know) and we ate plenty of good sea food. The weather was fairly cooperative. Dad and Nathan and Shadow and I took an epic trek along the beach on our first full day there, three miles down wind, and then three more challenging miles back upwind. We visited the Yaquina Head Lighthouse, and saw some charismatic macrofauna. All in all, a delightful weekend!! (More pictures when I can pry them from Nathan's phone.)





You can always click on the slideshow to enjoy the photos at your own speed.

Back to School

It's official, I'm going to be a student (again) in January. I'm starting to library school, at that state school near my house, though my goal is to set foot on campus as infrequently as possible. Hopefully, through the magic of those internets, and a few years of reading and writing, I'll be a really-truly librarian. I am, as they say, stoked. :)

Morning Walk Update

This month, sometime, we'll hit our six month mark for morning walks. We haven't missed a day yet, we've either walked or biked every day. Sometimes, strictly speaking, the word "morning" can't be applied to our walk time, but for the most part, lately, we're up and walking before the sun rises. It's dark-dark, real, true dark when we leave home. Usually by the time we're back at our front door, the sky is light over the hills and Mt. Hamilton observatory, and you can just barely tell that trees are green, instead of black. With almost two full months before the time change, I'm thinking we won't even be seeing the light skies come mid-November.

However, there is definitely a cool side to walking in the dark. Last week, we were out as the full moon was setting into the foothills. It was clear (and cold!) and the light was amazing. We were walking up the long straight street that turns into our Big Hill, when we heard a click clicking sound behind us. Jogging up the middle of the street, not at ALL bothered by us, was a coyote! It was awesome and a little sad all at the same time. Awesome, because how many mornings do you get to share your aerobic exercise with a coyote? Sad, because here it was running through a suburban housing development. Not that it seemed to be suffering in any way. It looked downright perky. A few seconds later, more click clicking, and we turned to see a deer, also jogging down the middle of the street. We could still see the coyote ahead of us under the street light, and things looked to get kind of interesting. I don't think a single coyote would go after a full grown doe, but I also didn't think they'd hook up and go for coffee either. The deer turned down a side street, and the coyote disappeared into the ravine, right through the berry bushes where we saw all the bunnies earlier in the spring. We haven't seen any bunnies recently, and we've been telling ourselves they are "sleeping in," but if they set up camp on the coyote trail.....well, it's hard to know what to hope for.