Unemployed...wha???

There's nothing like no work and all play. Once you get over the storming out of bars crying about your inflated/deflating ego blah blah blah phase it's all downhill.

So, not to make life sound fabulous, but let me just recount the last few days...




Monday was a good biking tour of the riverside esplanade...where, once again the sweet smell of blackberries assaulted the senses...I have yet to bike anywhere in this town that hasn't had at least a stretch of that absolutely fabulous aroma that the berries are putting off in this hot weather.
--on a side note, we had a good discussion of how to go about training for the STP and I got to veer off the trail and into downtown to stop at REI for some recreational shorts (with butt cushions...oh yeah, picture it). I'm also starting to lean more towards the idea of a "half-on" road bike instead of the hybrids/commuters I was considering earlier this year. I say "half-on" as in not "full-on" because I am still really attracted to the straight bar style instead of the drop down. I'm also attracted to the idea of having a job so I can purchase a new bike. Soon, maybe. (Also, biking downtown is fun for a few reasons, none of which include catching the spray from someone's windshield wiper cleaning fluid).

So, after getting home from our biking journey we chanced on the idea of going camping on Tuesday. So we got out the "granola" books and picked a couple of places. We finally settled on a coastal hiking and camping experience and set off mid-morning yesterday.
Ah, nature. Sort of. We picked a camping spot that had a hike from the campground proper, or so we thought, and ended up having to drive a bit further to get to the trailhead instead. So far, no big deal. We pulled up to the marked area and found an entourage...I thought the hike must be more popular than we had estimated for mid-week. We parked on the side of the road and headed up to the parking lot where we found, a couple of RV's, 3 or 4 fifteen foot trucks, a caterer, some lunch tables (complete with salt and pepper shakers) camera rigs and about 60 or 70 people standing around looking important. Uh?
A Kia car commercial was being filmed. I had no idea it took that many people to film a 1 minute blip of a car driving through wooded roads. Although it was kind of cool to see the camera rigged SUV that was doing the filming. Oh well. Five miles of hiking along the coast and back and they were still there. I think we passed 4 or 5 different guys with walkie talkies stationed at different parts of the road on the way back to our campsite and they had positioned a flagger a few miles beyond to control traffic.
So, when you see it, know that somewhere tramping around in the woods, we were there. mwahahaha. And fucking gorgeous. Absolutely beautiful to hike around in. We even got little "toe facials" (yes I know that makes no sense) from squelching along the muddy trail in sandals.
The whole bit of this camping trip was to finally have the opportunity to use some of our new toys. Our sleek backpacking tent, therma-rest pads, removable handle lightweight pots, and so on. nerds. I know I know. Shut up. We got a real kick out of lighting the fire with a flint strike too heh heh heh. And other than the crazy boys that showed up in the middle of the night, quite loudly and longly and (truth be told) to much amusement and heckling (amongst ourselves) from our half-asleep state, it was quite a lovely night. Besides, when we woke up with rain this morning I peeked my head out to get a glimpse of the new arrivals only to find that karma is a real bitch. They had not brought a rain fly for their tent. Ah.... They had grudgingly packed up and shipped out before we even had the gumption to sit-up in our tent. Which is awesome by the way...no rain problems here, although we probably could have set the fly up better/tighter, bah...bygones.

I also enjoyed our "brown-bagged" wine. It was lovely to sit and sip as we sat by the fire, eating dinner, then later as we watched the sunset over the ocean and then finally in the tent playing rummy and getting sleepy.

...and the sunset...

This morning after we had sufficiently woken up, we took a long walk on the beach with a mug of tea and then came back, took down the camp and headed into town where we sampled and purchased some excellent local cheeses on our way home.