Eleven and the Coast

At cape lookout

We'd been wanting to visit this place for awhile and meet with the brewer/owner--and seeing a good couple of days without a work shift or house showings we packed up the car and headed to the coast.

Not a bad way to spend the summer solstice.

 








It had been about 9 years since we'd headed to this spot together and it was funny to recreate a similar scene. We even found the same bottle of wine (different vintage) to enjoy on the beach.


We didn't exactly make a "leaving Oregon" list, but we are definitely picking up on places that we've loved in our time here. Nothing wrong with a little sand in the shoes.

Eleven

A lovely view on our walking food tour

walking food tour - plus cops!

I find that my personal Oregon list-making is centered a lot around places that I want to go eat and drink (and be merry...for example). We did a bit of walking tour of town on the eve of our anniversary (no. 11 for wedding and 15 overall) and then settled in on our anniversary proper for an amazing five-course, wine-paired menu at a place we'd often thought of going to but booking a table was always a 30-45 day in advance experience (we took advantage of the fine weather and popped in at opening for non-reservable patio seating). It was exquisite. Also, one of the menu items is now a strong contender (up there with chili-fried ants) for "most unusual" item I've consumed--cow thymus, or cow throat, interestingly enough in the culinary world called "sweetbreads" (sorry, no pictures). It was chicken-fried, which added to our confusion about what the hell we were eating...fry bread? chicken? I don't eat chicken anymore and considered abstaining from the course entirely, but instead I got to puzzle over it. It reminded me of what the puree of chicken parts that goes into nuggets tastes like. The waiter was almost gleeful when he told us what it actually was--I imagine that the shock value goes a long way toward making the night enjoyable for the wait-staff. Either way, new, interesting and now identifiable.

Sunset in the Old Mill, last stop on our walking food tour

At green lakes

We've made a number of plans to keep being outside and exploring activities and places we'd always wanted to while also revisiting others. The July calendar is starting to look like a 3-4 day cycle of: pack car, travel/camp/hike/eat food/enjoy/travel, unpack car, go to grocery store, pet/feed/water cats, repeat. There's something a bit strange in traveling a bunch before setting out on the cross-country drive, but perhaps we can think of it in a "saddle time" kind of way...

Canoodling in Oregon

You may recall, we took ceremonial possession of Joe's canoe a few years back...Joe and Pat managed to find a system for the truck and then also for storing it in our very well-organized but cramped garage while I was away.

Since I've been back on the left coast we've been considering taking the canoe up to the lakes. We've been having some lovely weather and so my ability to protest regarding wind, rain, or sore muscles due to yard work was significantly diminished.

It was much lighter and easier to take down than I thought it would be from the garage ceiling perch that Joe and his Dad designed. Getting it up and down from the truck also proved to be relatively easy.  We received a number of glowing compliments as we walked it into the lake--it made us quite proud.

And for very little effort we were rewarded with a new view of the mountains and an island lunch break.

Not too bad.

We've mostly been taking mornings off here and there to do short hikes and such since this is now a thing:

But after 6 days on the market we received an offer this afternoon--apparently we aren't the only ones that like the canoe because it was written into the offer, right next to the washer and dryer. Clearly we will be countering.

I'd be very happy to go into contract after a week, because showings have meant dealing with the cats and quite frankly I have become the craziest cat lady on the block--although Joe got a turn yesterday.

Over the border

I wrote about how we had tried to hop the river and see the sites when Joe came to visit me while doing fieldwork. It was going to be quite a headache, so we opted against it. Well, we made good on our decision to try again and spent spring break on a whirlwind tour of some select spots. It was a fabulous way to meet in the middle (as it were) and for me to take a break from being professor...for a whole week!



It was absolutely stunning. We relaxed lakeside, nestled into volcanoes. We traversed a volcano and visited nearby villages. We kept the local breweries in business. We stumbled around cobblestone streets (no relation to beer consumption). We stared at ancient sites while being serenaded by howler monkeys. We hammocked. We snorkeled the reef with sharks, stingrays, turtles and colorful fish. And I still have sand in my shoes and the smell of sunscreen in all of my clothes.

Lago Atitlan

In Antigua

Shadows in Antigua

Arch with volcano shadow - Antigua

Tikal

Tikal

Main Plaza in Tikal

No subir

My Star Wars shot!

Incoming storm, Belize

Pelican

Hammocking

Brilliant seating

Coozies in Caye Caulker

Sunset, last night in Belize

Sunrise en route to Airport

We ate a lot of plantains and tortillas and I drank or ate my way through my weight in tropical fruit. Oh pineapple juice! The rest of our trip can be viewed on the trip photo site (link to right).

My nose is back against the grindstone and I am counting the days (25, lest you wonder) until I am on a plane home.

While keeping my Spanish fresh

This horrible truth.

This is a thing...

Classes for the Potterphile

Relevance

I spent the last three months attempting to find something relevant to discuss here. But to be honest it felt either contrived or whiny. I think I pushed my nose a bit too close to the grindstone in trying to prepare for what felt akin to an
unattainable future. I worried and I wrote and I applied for jobs and I taught and stupidly I fussed over whether my students liked my classes.

I'd love to say that the first semester as professor allowed for the glorious unburdening of my grad school stress and inferiority complex, but it might have actually heightened it as I stretched my fingertips into the unknown.

Here I am in the new year. I've had the opportunity to breathe and relax and just be. Just be at home. Just be out in the snow. Just be on the trail. Just be looking for the bottom of the glass (excellent, beer, wine and whiskey). Just be lost in a book. Just be with Joe. Calm. Refresh. Renewal.

At home on the Metolius

Part of this is due to the fact that I have been snatched up for a tenure-track position at the earliest possible time in the job season--a feat I would never have thought to accomplish. I am thrilled and terrified. Mostly thrilled. And also terrified.

The academic life is one of those places you go that you have great autonomy as compared with other careers--excepting the fact that you are tied to a University. And that the best department for you, the best fit academically may not be in the location best-suited to your soul. I tried to avoid applying for positions anywhere that I thought would feel as though we'd been dragged to the inner-circles of hell. But we are ending up, for the foreseeable future (tenure track!) on the wrong coast.

It will be my fourth cross-country move as an adult, my ninth overall. Each trip offers something different, although this one will include three travel averse kitties, so it'll be more of a race I suppose. We have a lot of decisions to make (terrifying) and I will get to start working on my tenure file in earnest (thrilling).

Otherwise, in the last few months I have tried to not adopt the usual hobbit/hermit/hibernating version of myself.

Visit to the Shenandoah

In Philly

We've taken advantage of the fact that I'm making a proper wage to minimize the distance between us, meeting in Denver at the GABF in October and spending Thanksgiving in Maine. I have also had a couple of visitors which has been great...and this popped up on my route to the metro which also gave me a nice warm fuzzy:

Bringing Oregon to Virginia!

I also tried to remember some of the things I like out of the city in the fall--apple picking, cider, hiking amongst deciduous trees. Although I can't remember ever having a concession stand of this sort at a trail head before...

 

Shenandoah

I head back east this coming weekend for what will be another exciting term. I've planned some rigorous classes, which are sure to make me unpopular with most students ; )

It smells different here...

So I've been back in the city for a little over a month and it is all at once a beautiful and terrifying place. I am trying to take advantage of being in this particular place (and having an income)--this has mostly taken the form of going to events, such as a soccer game and some food-related dinners at the museum. I realize I should have been taking pictures. I've spent a couple of evenings in the last few weeks partaking in glorious meals within the garden. It's nice and it gets me out. I'm trying very hard to not go hermit or in any way replicate the loneliness of the field. It's going moderately well.

Something about living here before makes it feel a little bit like putting on an old shoe everyday. I have adopted all of my old (bad) habits--jaywalking, left side of escalator protocol and etcetera. I used to get annoyed with the morning and evening rush in the underground, but now a more than a decade later, a new layer/source of irritation has emerged. Oh smartphones, how I love and hate thee. There is a very specific sort of crowd behavior that has conditioned people for the peak hours commute. The smartphone has disrupted that significantly. I find myself wanting to shake people, shouting into their faces "you're in a crowd! change the song/send the text/check twitter LATER! p.s. I hate you. Also you are either the epitome of rush-hour conformity or its downfall." But I don't, I just try to be all zen about it and navigate my way through what has become a maze-like space.

I have to say I'm enjoying the city more with a soundtrack. Grocery shopping and walking through campus feels lighter when I can drown it out with my own music. (I know, I know, but still...). I have also found that earbuds are a clever method of avoidance--I'm sorry were you trying to flag me down to answer some political survey? I'm pretending I can't hear you over the bass. The earbuds though brilliant for the auditory are no assistance for the olfactory. There are myriad smells in the city and I can't say I like them all that much. I am already imagining the gulps of air I will take when I step foot on the tarmac back in the high desert in the winter.

Oh yes, and then there is the whole being a professor thing. They call me Professor. It's taking some getting used to. But I like it. A lot. So far I am very impressed with the students and the school. Now that I can get around campus better--city block campus is both helpful and weird--I feel more confident. I've also found some shortcuts through campus which take me by such gems as this phone booth, through some creative landscaping (they were trimming the basil hedge yesterday:good smell), and through the square by the library where I superstitiously pass under the "professor's gate" every day. 

The parks, part 4

We went a bit out of our way south to see about some caves and some more "mountains." Due to poor timing we didn't actually descend into the caves. We had read that you could do a self-guided walk in the first major section, but that is apparently only true on very busy weekends, not weekday evenings. So we saw an exhibit of the caves, which was impressive and where we learned that it was called "mammoth" due to it being the longest cave system in the world, and that the end still has not been found. Cool. But no spelunking or photos.

Instead we had a lovely dinner where we received a recommendation for a short waterfalls hike on our way out of town the next day.

It was one of a few state parks that we ventured into on our trip--we mostly found these to be good (if fee driven) lunch spots. We didn't linger over the falls too much, even though I think Joe was ready to jump in at any moment--even our leisurely approach to the east didn't lessen the impact of being in high percentage humidity again.

Instead we headed towards the Great Smoky mtns. To be honest I was less interested in this park than many others because it seemed primarily focused on driving to restored homestead sites. And it was, but there were also bears. Bears.

Following the smokies, we did a bit of the Shenandoah, which was quite pretty, even outside of its fall glory. And then we descended into the city. I think the monuments in DC are considered national parks as well, but we didn't do any reminiscing at those.

The next day we used the vehicle to complete some errands that would have been otherwise cumbersome on foot and also revisited a couple of our favorite vineyards west of town.  And then we relinquished the vehicle and took to the metro to see how much we remembered of the museums and the mall.

Here I am again, in the city. I think I'm getting a handle on the whole urban commute again....