Planes, Trains and Automobiles

(Sarah shows us how relaxfest is done)

Finally took a REAL vacation. You know, the kind that doesn’t involve so much activity that you need another vacation to recover from the vacation. And the kind that wasn’t attached to a work trip. It was great. Sleeping, walking around seeing things but not too many things, reading books, swimming, thinking about running and mostly not actually going (excuse: too humid. reality: too lazy), watching other people be active (ie, watching the olympics), cooking dinner with friends and catching up, hearing grandparent’s stories, enjoying grandparent happy hour on the back patio.

And just long enough in each place to not get antsy, and just long enough away from home to be happy to be back and ready to be busy again.

Spent the first weekend of vacation in northern Pennsylvania at Sarah’s family cabin on a lake. The weekend was complete with a New York excursion to see Ithaca and its gorges and learn new car games (silos and graveyards, anyone?),

(Dai, Kate and Calla for scale)

(more, beautiful shallow marine shelf rocks, apparently Devonian aged. I saw HCS!)

plenty of lake time with Frisbee diving,

(click on the picture if you want to see Calla and Sarah's game faces...)

(good thing that wasn't on land. Something would have snapped.)

Mid-week I spent with the grandparents in the DC area and enjoyed having time to read the paper, read my books, go for a couple of half-hearted runs in the neighborhood and catching up on the old stories. We also went out to Great Falls on the Potomac and saw the obstacles that prompted the original GW to build canals.

(Grandmama and Granddad check out the falls.)

(Great Falls)(Canal remnants)(Beautiful heirloom tomatoes at the Fairfax farmer's market. Couldn't resist since I was reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracal at the same time and had just gotten through the description of the Virginia farm produce)

The following weekend I spent in Durham, North Carolina with Nate and Chrissy and the newest Williams: Gwyn. She’s cute, she’s “dangerous” and got her parents solidly wrapped around her finger. She’s got a little work to do on the cats, however. I got to help start a Porter brewing at Nate’s work

(Brewer Nate and his machines)

and spend time in thick, green vegetation. Nice change of pace from Brown California in August.

(BIG lily pads in the Duke botanical gardens. Only missing a giant bullfrog)

(VERY old type of metasequoia. Apparently typical from 70 to 15 million years ago. This one was grown from fossil seeds!)

(Chrissy and her dangerous progeny, Gwyn)

Meanwhile, back at headquarters….

(Our asian pears)

While I was away, the garden grew; some parts better than other. The basil and tomatoes look great, and I’m holding out for the day when I can make a tasty pasta meal from homegrown basil and tomatoes and fresh made pasta from the Pasta Lady at the farmer’s market.

(first cherry tomatoes!)

I don’t know how long the basil will hold out, but I keep hoping if I just pluck the ends just before they blossom, I can delay the harvest. Me against nature, a battle I usually lose. The sunflowers out front are a slightly sadder story; the snails have found them, but they seem to be trying to bloom, regardless of not having any leaves anymore.

I won’t mention the peas. I don’t think they get enough sun…..

(the best of the bunch. No kidding. I replanted them in a last ditch effort to give them more sun. We'll see...)

The recently planted cucumbers and kale look promising though. Yay for the long growing season out here! Perfect for the procrastinating gardner.

Since being back, it has been a slow transition back to the research life. Lab work and outside activities have been the primary occupations. Mel and Nadine convinced me to sign up for a metric century in the Santa Cruz Mountains the other weekend. I had two weeks to get ready and Mel kindly lent me her very nice cylcocross bike. Crafty, crafty Mel; she knows the way to get someone addicted. The ride was fantastic, and other than slightly sore bits the next days, I felt remarkably ok. There were a couple of stiff climbs, though and at one point I looked at Mel and told her I was pretty sure I could run up the hill faster than I was pedaling. But beautiful views and A LOT of food made it worth the while.

Last week has been spent finally grading everything from summer field, which was a slow, painstaking and somewhat mind numbing process. I’d rather not look at a strat column again for awhile. But we’re done and it is back to lab work, paper writing and an upcoming vacation to the East.