Just One Of Those Days

You know the ones I mean. It's raining. And very windy. And kinda cold, even in my office that is usually hot. And the work was piled up to the ceiling and will be again tomorrow. It just wasn't my day.

Darcy, on the other hand, got to ride little belly-scooters across the big room at preschool as part of their "we're stuck inside" play plan. And we opened up a big box that came for her yesterday so that she could marvel at the three wrapped (and staying that way!) presents inside. I think she got as much enjoyment over petting the wrapping paper and talking about what might be inside them as many people get from the actual presents. She also (I'm putting on my proud-mama hat now) told me that the envelope said, "Darcy! D-A-R-C-Y -- Darcy!! That's for me!"

Early Spring on the Coastal Drive

Many months ago, we drove a long section of the Coastal Drive between Klamath and the Newton Drury Parkway. It is mostly dirt and often one lane in each direction. It is not heavily traveled and shows few signs of previous habitation. And then we came upon this bank:

Daffodils! My very favorite-est flowers! Daffies make me a very happy person, so we had to stop so I could take pictures of these feral, naturalized-for-who-knows-how-many-years lovelies.

And here's the great thing about the Coastal Drive. It is, as the name suggests, right on the coast for the majority of its length. So when I turned around to take a picture of the other side of the road, this is the view I captured:

Not too shabby, eh?

Don't Try to Bowl On Sundays

This morning, the rain was still coming down. We were planning to go to church because Darcy's preschool class was singing (her preschool is connected to the church) at the 11 o'clock service, but we needed something to do after that if it was still raining. After checking online to see if the bowling alley is open on Sundays (their website said YES, except in summer), we asked Darcy if she'd like to go bowling. We got a very enthusiastic response and so came home after she sang (with gusto!), had lunch, called to invite a friend to join us bowling, and off we went.

Not open. Most definitely not open and it's sign claims not open on Sunday in general.

We headed home to see if there's a bowling alley in Brookings(there is, but they didn't answer their phone, leading me to believe that they are also closed on Sundays) , but while I was inside making phone calls, Darcy set her own Plan B in motion: she fell asleep.

So Michael stayed in the car and read his book while I turned over the compost piles and raked leaves. Then we switched places until she woke up. We ended up doing not much of anything today other than learning that one cannot bowl on the Wild Rivers Coast on Sundays. So don't try it.

Rain, Rain, Rain

I'm home! It's raining!

I had a very swift day of traveling today -- starting at ridiculously early hours again. My flight to San Francisco was so early that we had to wait for the guy with the orange sticks to show up to roll the final twenty feet to the gate. Our pilot said that we had surprised them, being that we were an hour early.

A lot of our flight was in sunshine with scattered clouds, but as we got closer and closer to Medford, the western exposures were all cloudy, with valleys socked in by viscous fog much like that I drove through Wednesday morning. Luckily, most of my drive was pleasant, although very windy.

And now I'm exhausted and I'm done with today's post.

Tide Pools

Tide pools! There are a few places to visit tide pools in and around Crescent City. One Sunday morning, we headed down to these ones. You can see orange and purple-ish starfish on the rocks.

Starfish are strong. This one is holding three large rocks!

Darcy loves the sea! (And has no fear of it.)

Yoga poses on the beach in honor of Uncle John and Auntie Best.

Sometimes, when a girl just doesn't want to leave the beach, she needs to become very, very limpet-like. We got Darcy to leave by letting her limpet her way from one rock to the next.

Arcata Market

Sometime around Labor Day, we went to the very fabulous Arcata Saturday farmers' market. It's held in Arcata's plaza, with vendors going all the way around all four sides and a few in the center (mostly prepared foods and the live music). Darcy was having fun dancing and playing with hula hoops while I shopped the edges.

The most-wonderful balloon man made a pink octopus for Darcy while she watched in awe. She's holding a sunflower taller than she is, but you can hardly see it. Michael reported that some random stranger went and bought it for her in appreciation for her great dancing skills.

These next photos are in honor of my Uncle Nick. Those of you who don't know him probably don't know that he has a website called Poems for Free. He used to do exactly what this Poem Store does: people would send him a request for a poem on a certain subject or in honor of a person or event, and he'd write a poem. He got too many requests after a while, but he still writes and posts poems that anyone is free to use.

This poet is at the market all the time (as far as I can tell) and types up her poems on her portable that she hauls around (with her chair) in her kitted-out hauling bike. It's very cool. High pressure creativity, though!

After market, we went to the local, organic ice cream shop, which Darcy adores. (I do, too -- the lemon-poppyseed ice cream is delicious!) They have a pretend ice cream shop that she plays in long after the ice cream is gone. They have very cute homemade aprons, which Michael is helping model here.

Now, I have to go eat Ethiopian food! Yay!

A Day Of Travel

5:29 am, Medford, Oregon:

I rounded a sharp curve in the middle of my drive to Medford this morning and saw bright, shiny stars ahead of me. It shocked me because on the other side of that curve, I couldn't see more than two dashed center lines ahead of me in the center of the road. Most of my two-hour drive this morning was through dense fog, which just added to the fun of driving US Highway 199 along the Smith River.

I pulled out of our driveway at 2:50 and I was very glad for that 10-minute cushion when I realized that the fog was NOT going away as I got further from the coast. I always have an out-of-time experience when I travel for a full day, but usually, the sensation sets in much later in the trip. But when the world closes to a car-length of visibility with a wall of white all around you, time doesn't mean much. Except that I had a plane to catch, of course.

(So I spent time in Denver, but it went really fast and I didn't get a chance to open the computer. The flights were both on time, which made things easier.)

8:13 pm, Arlington, VA:

I keep thinking it's really, really late, but then I look at the clock and realize that it's not late HERE and Darcy and Michael might not even be home from work/preschool back at home. Crazy. I'm trying to stay awake long enough to be sure I'll sleep straight through the night.

I stopped at the conference hotel when I got off the metro (after the shuttle and the train and the other metro) and spent a little time at the meet and greet. There was a small group heading out to Adams-Morgan for Ethiopian food and I was very, very tempted to go with them, but I'm too tired and too traveled-out to get back on the metro.

I was forgetting that most of the people at this training would be farmers' market people, but it seems like a good group of folks are here. It will be fun to hear what kinds of projects people are funding with these grants.