Vacation!

I hadn't been on a true vacation since I'd been divorced -- a couple of long weekends with my best friend in order to run a marathon in another state. All of my siblings live on the west coast. They all came in to town in July in order to celebrate my dad's 65th birthday.

One of my sisters drove in with her husband, who flew back alone (she works in the school so has summers off) and the other one flew in.  We decided to drive back together -- my first real road trip!  Of course, I look at her potential itinerary and realize that we will be driving through Utah just as a marathon is taking place!  My sisters were troopers, and we slowed down our trip by half a day or so in order for me to check another state off of my list!

I didn't keep great records of where these were taken, but I believe it's in Rocky Mountain National Park.  I purchased a CD that was supposed to enhance our drive through the mountains -- and it worked!

This Clark's Nutcracker (add another one to the life list!) was begging for food; luckily we all ignored him -- he needs to be wild!

Gorgeous!  I just loved it.  I have tentative plans to go back with one of my close friends.  I can't wait!

We stopped to do a bit of birding -- more for the life list; alas, no pictures! -- my sisters aren't birders, but they were good sports about it.

This translation was in our hotel room in Utah.  It had us all confused.  We tried google translate and posting on facebook.  The next morning, I called the front desk and asked what the second language was.  He claimed that they paid someone to translate it into Spanish but they only recently found out that it wasn't actually Spanish.  We found this so funny.

I showed it to a couple of friends -- one from Colombia and another from Costa Rica and both of them said, "I do not think that is Spanish."  Perfect!

Here is a picture from Dinosaur National Monument.  There were so many dinosaur bones here that they left some in a hill so that we could see what it was like for the archaeologists.  You can touch them and everything.  Highly recommended, and pretty empty of people (especially compared to Rocky Mountain National Park!)

We continued on driving, I ran the marathon (I won an age group award of a loaf of bread!), and we eventually made it to Crater Lake.  The last time I was here, I was married, and we ran the marathon together.  This time, it was with better company and more relaxed.  Once again, so beautiful.  You just look and wonder how this is possibly real.

In Oregon, there was a lava flow that happened a long time ago and created some interesting landscapes.  We trapsed around a bit, and then went to a lava cave.  So happy to visit these places after all the mess died down.

We finally made it to Portland, where my favorite aunt and uncle live.  Among other things, we went to the Chinese garden, where I got this fortune:

Yay!

Later, back at my sister's condo, we had a great time, which included making pina coladas.

I didn't take many pictures that I can post here.  They'd just adopted a new cat, who was quite skittish and living under my guest bed.  My sister and her husband were in the living room watching TV, but I'd gone to bed since I had an early flight. 

The cat came out from under the bed and I took this picture and texted it to my sister (in the next room) but by the time she arrived, the cat was already under the bed again.  I kind of like being able to keep my parrots in cages since I know where they are at all times!

To wrap up, we had an amazing vacation, and are in preliminary planning for our next one.  I'll be a little busy next year -- running the Boston Marathon, going to France with my mom, possibly doing rim-ro-rim of the Grand Canyon with a close friend -- but someday soon, the three of us will hit the road again!

May fun

I've mentioned before that one of my goals is to run a marathon in every state.  My best friend, who also runs marathons, has agreed to run marathons in some states with me.  She will not commit to all 50!  So, earlier this year, we ran a marathon in Michigan, and then in May, we went to Ohio to run the Flying Pig Marathon.  So much fun!

I didn't really have friends before, so one of the best parts of my new beginning is all of the friendships that I've made.  I had known my best friend for about 8 years, in that we'd train for a marathon every summer.  However, we'd see each other on Saturday mornings for 13 weeks, and then not talk again until the following July.  Now, I bought a house 5 blocks from her and we see each other several times a week.

Here is a view of the bridge that will take us over to Cincinnati from Kentucky, where our hotel was:

So clever -- here are past years' posters.  This year was Pigcasso.  I love it!

We went to a baseball game, since the Reds were in town.

The guy in front of us at the ticket line really loved the Reds!

Because we had run a marathon, we got to eat a lot of delicious food:

Back home, another one of my new friends is the lead singer in a local band.  He was shockingly good!  Several of us (I brought the guy I was dating at the time) went to hear him -- there was lots of dancing and laughter!

 

Later in the month, my department was having a mini golf tournament.  I had to build a golf hole, and did so with the help of the guy I was dating at the time.  We won the prize of "Hardest Hole" which included gift certificates to a coffee shop.  I think it took me about 30 strokes to get the ball in the hole, and even that might have involved a bit of cheating (such as guiding the ball a bit more than I think is legal...)

One day, I came home and my neighbors were staring over the fence.  She said that there was a turkey who had been hanging out in my yard for hours!  You can see him at the end of my driveway -- he left once I arrived.

One of the things I do a lot now is go to concerts.  Another one of my very good friends works for a concert venue in town, so she'll invite me to see shows when she has extra tickets.

However, my boss (who is absolutely amazing) invited me to see The Indigo Girls with her since she had an extra ticket.  We had a great time and though I didn't really know their music, wound up buying their Greatest Hits CD and listen to it frequently now.

Now, to upload pictures from the rest of the summer and get up to date so I can hopefully maintain this blog more faithfully going forward.

I am sad that I didn't keep a record of what I was going through when things were so terrible for me.  However, the pain was so raw and so intense that I'm not sure I'd want to have that down in print or to ever revisit it.  Now, with distance from an abusive relationship, all I can think is how lucky I was to get out in my mid-30s.  That I still had time to find the life that I should have been living -- to experience things like friends, laughter, honest people, good sex, and so much more.  To live instead of to just exist.

More soon!

Gulf coast recap

We just returned from a week-long trip to the gulf coast. The main purpose of the trip was to run a marathon in our 50 state quest, though we got a fair amount of birding in! The only parrot part of our trip was seeing quakers fly over us.

As for the marathon part, Thomas and I both set PRs! Mine was a 10 minute PR (to a sub-3:30 race!), and his was over 30 minutes! We have several marathons and at least one ultra-marathon (50 miler) planned for later this spring.

I think this is one of the best pictures I have ever taken -- a pelican, roseate spoonbill, and ibis all taking off at the same time. The only thing that would have made this better is if you could have seen the spoonbill's head, but her coloring is so distinctive, I love this picture anyway. This was taken from the car. (The day before the marathon -- didn't want to be on our feet much!)That same day, we came across a dolphin. At first, we thought she was dying, as she was thrashing around in the shallow part of the coast, but we think she was just scaring up some food. We watched her for quite some time; she was quite agile. Every other time we've seen dolphins, they've been in a group, so hopefully this solitary one was OK.
We mostly birded and hiked post-marathon. It was so fun to see armadillos!
And this raccoon was one of the cutest things I've ever seen. He kept going up to the plants to see what might be hidden there.
Alligator!
Quintessential gulf cost picture. If I lived there, I'm not sure I'd ever get to work -- I'd just go birding all of the time.
We would have walked right past this nesting great-horned owl; luckily a volunteer at the national forest had us follow her and let us use her spotting scope:
In the botanical gardens, we were able to see this Buff-bellied Hummingbird. We'd spoken to one of the naturalists earlier who told us to look at the cherry blossoms to find him. We'd just about given up and were going to leave the garden when he appeared. What a treat!
This is a picture of one of our most exciting moments. We were driving along the highway when we had a feeling to get out and look. We had to traverse some pretty heavy brush, but it was worth it to see a flock of Black-crowned Night-Herons. During the day!
I love rails -- partly because they are so elusive and difficult to see. During our trip, we saw two Black Rails (different days), a Virginia Rail, and a King Rail. The king is the only one we were close enough to get some good pictures of:Isn't she gorgeous? We watched her for probably 5-10 minutes until she slunk off. She didn't seem to mind our presence and we tried to be as unobtrusive as possible.

We had such a fantastic trip and are hoping to take a mostly-birding trip at least once a year. It was wonderful to spend a week outdoors, in nature.

As for our parrots, they survived our absence just fine. I haven't spoken to our birdsitter yet; I just got her written message. All of the birds behaved for her, with the exception of Max. I just don't get it. Max is our best-behaved bird when it comes to parrot-human relationships. But she does not get along with our birdsitter (who is an amazing person and wonderful with birds in general -- she's the main volunteer at the rescue.)

She left me a cryptic note -- "Max is neither winning friends nor influencing people." I will find out tomorrow what that means. This is just mind-boggling to me and I have to think of ways that she can win Max's affection before our next trip!

Miscellaneous Friday

As I was leaving work yesterday, I noticed a crow perched in a precarious position in a parking lot tree:There was a bit of wind, and she was being blown all over, making sure to keep her hold on the tiny branch. It reminded me of an amusement park ride!

*************************
Thomas got home before me yesterday, so all of the parrots were out when I got home. Knowing my routine, Rocky ran over to the stairs to try to scare me. I always go upstairs to my bedroom after getting home to change into lounging around clothes. Rocky likes to sneak attack me by hiding around corners, so must have been so delighted at this opportunity -- a sneak attack on the stairs!

Unfortunately for Rocky, Thomas discovered him before he could put his plot into action. (Also, after being attacked this way in the past, I am always aware of Rocky's position in order to prevent such an attack, so he wouldn't have been successful even if Thomas hadn't outed him.)

Thomas called me over so I could see the thwarted macaw, but Max arrived first as I had to grab the camera. She was not pleased to see him on the stairs (she considers the stairs to belong to her) and flew at him, forcing him to fly down to the ground.

When I pushed the button to take this picture, Rocky was on the stairs, but Max moved so quickly, this is the shot that actually stuck:
Max in mid-attack, even though her victim has already fled.

*************************
Speaking of Rocky, I think he might be secretly British. He's always had a good sense of humor, laughing at appropriate times, but the past few nights he's been unstoppable. We've been watching Fawlty Towers, through which Rocky laughs constantly! And always at appropriate times.

His laughter is so infectious that we've had to pause and rewatch on several occasions as we're laughing too hard to follow the show. Maybe Basil Fawlty gave him the idea to attack me on the stairs?

*************************
Quick running update -- earlier this month, I ran my 13th marathon, and ran a personal best time! The day was absolutely perfect -- one of those days I wouldn't mind being able to relive.

I've decided to run a marathon in all 50 states and DC. Having run 13 marathons, you might think I'm well on my way to reaching that goal, but sadly, that is not the case. I've run two different marathons six times each, so my 13 marathons result in only three states. I've got a long way to go!

Thomas and I will be running a marathon in late winter in another state (Thomas's first marathon in almost 10 years!) and I'm hoping to get at least three more states done in 2011, which will more than double my current total.

I'm so excited about combining travel and marathoning!

*************************
I'm at home, but upstairs. The parrots are in their cages, and they are so pleasantly vocal! They are singing, whistling, talking, beeping, kissing, etc. I miss their sounds when I'm at work.

*************************
The parrots are getting a little frustrated with their favorite baseball team, the Philadelphia Phillies. Luckily they were able to stave off elimination last night. The game went on past their bedtimes, so they'd thought the worst and had a restless night. I had some very happy parrots this morning :) All we need now is a two game home winning streak. Go Phillies!

*************************
Hope everyone has a great weekend! As usual, we are trying to cram tons of stuff into our weekend, plus Thomas has to work. Hopefully I'll remember to take pictures!