Well, we made it safe and sound back to Berkeley yesterday evening, after a wonderful, wonderful trip. I didn't take many more pictures, but here are a few more just for fun. What a ridiculously beautiful town.
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| Whale skeleton at the Natural History Museum. |
All in all, I think we obtained the perfect ratio of doing-stuff to down-time. We had 2-3 planned activities/outings per day, so I felt like I got out a lot and saw a lot of fun stuff, but we also were really good about knowing when to rest and recuperate. It was more or less the perfect vacation; I don't feel like I missed anything major, and I also never felt like I was dragging myself through another museum visit that I had to do, for example, which can sometimes be the case with vacations.
I think my very favorite part was running along the beach. On Wednesday afternoon, we ran 5 miles along the bike path, which ended at the parking lot to Goleta Beach, and then we stowed our shoes in the car and ran about 2 more miles on the beach itself. The tide was pretty high, and the water was so chilly and refreshing, and it was really neat to feel how a completely different set of muscles is recruited for running in wet sand. My feet, ankles, and calves really felt it, from being barefoot and having to navigate the landscape a little bit, which you don't normally have to do with shoes on. We ran right along the edge of the water, so the waves would crash into our legs and pull us into the ocean a little bit as they went back out, and it was also really fun to get splashed and then have to fight against that pull a little bit as the waves sucked us in. At the end, tired and a little achy, we ran straight into the water and got engulfed by cold, rolling waves that woke up every living cell in my body and tasted so strongly of salt.
Then we shuffled soggily back to the car, toweled off, and hit the In 'n Out drive thru for some hit-the-spot hamburgers and milkshakes. I was completely, blissfully exhausted, though I somehow managed to stay awake until about 9:30, when I crashed and slept like a rock for about 10 hours.
And then we drove home yesterday - these last few pictures are from the car ride. I must admit: I'm kind of starting to understand why people think California is so great. I found myself honest-to-goodness physically overwhelmed with the natural beauty of everything, especially at the beginning of the trip. The first full day we were in SB, last Saturday, I was totally exhausted by mid afternoon, and I just had to take a nap. I ended up taking a short nap most of the days we were there, in fact, which is so out of character for me, but I think it was just all of the brand new sights and smells and people, plus all of the walking, fresh air, and sunshine.
The whole trip was so great, and since the Napa Valley Marathon was so much fun... me and Jevon decided to combine the two and run the Santa Barbara Marathon in November. So now I get a few months off of training to just chill out, run casually, and then kick it back in sometime in late summer.
That's got to be all from me for now. Time to clean up a bit and maybe do some more work before figuring out something fun to do tonight!
