Santa Barbara (and homeward bound)

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.

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!

Santa Barbara (a little bit more)

View from the wharf.

At the wharf: all of the flags that have ever flown over Santa Barbara.

At the Sea Center, at the wharf: shark egg sacs!!

More view from the wharf.

The courthouse.

The courthouse close up.

View from the top of the courthouse.
I have approximately 15 pictures from up there, and they are all impossibly gorgeous.

Me and Jevon, on the roof at the courthouse.

The Mission.  We didn't go inside, but we took a little nap on this grass for a while.

Sunset on the beach.

Goleta Beach, looking at UC Santa Barbara.  Can you believe people go to school there?

Santa Barbara (a little bit)

I'm in Santa Barbara for Spring Break!  Unfortunately it's rainy today, which almost never, ever happens here, but it's actually very beautiful; there are billowy clouds with lots of different shades of gray that roll right up into the mountains, and the ocean is dark blue and gray too.

Way more unfortunate than the rain is the fact that I took my camera with me when we went out to the wharf today and I only got this one picture before the battery died.  I was so bummed!  There was an awesome life-size sand sculpture of a mermaid that I really wanted to get a picture of, and we went up in the courthouse tower and got a really beautiful view of the whole town.  Thankfully I brought my battery charger, and I'll be here until Friday, so I'm charging it right now and am going to take lots of pictures the rest of the week and post them soon.  And it's supposed to be sunny and 65 degrees the rest of the week too, so there should be no difficulty in forcing myself to walk around outside and snap some good shots of downtown, the beach, the flowers, the waves crashing...

It is so beautiful here!  But for now it's warm coffee, bumming around online, and hopefully a little bit of work before I head out to dinner with some friends tonight.  More soon!

view from my kitchen window

It's been raining for the past week solid; a cold, drizzly, misty rain that just makes you want a hot shower, a blanket, and a book.  But the trees are all blooming, and it feels like it's just about to be perfect and gorgeous out if we can hang on for a few more weeks.  We haven't had much rain at all this season, and I know we must need it.  The ground is pleasantly green and brown and mushy, and the creek that runs through campus is finally looking like a respectable creek instead of a slightly parched trickle.

This is the last week of classes before Spring Break, and I'm looking forward to a very good two weeks.  I have a big pile of grading to get through today, and a chapter to read, and a script to work on, but I'm headed to some friends' for dinner tonight, to hang out and play with their brand new litter of kittens, and a week from today, I'll be on a Spring Break vacation to Santa Barbara!

Ooh, I guess I should also add that the Napa Valley Marathon went very well, and I had an excellent time.  It was my slowest one yet, but I had a very enjoyable run and have recovered very quickly; the race was two weeks ago today, and I was ready for a short run the Thursday after the race.  I even did 5 miles yesterday morning, and even though I still feel a little out of breath when I run or go up lots of stairs, my muscles feel great, and I got a really nice shot of endorphins from just getting out and getting a little sweaty yesterday.  I'm still addicted, apparently.

Me, towards the tail end of the race.

I need to get to work now, but I'll be updating again relatively soon with lots of pictures of Santa Barbara, assuming all goes as planned!

Leap Day

you didn’t know that I write?

well:

I had forgotten too, to tell you the truth

writing

for me

is an untangling of sorts

a loosening of stubborn knots

and a stroking of tender muscles

I write when sentences won’t do the trick

when uncompleted thoughts and abandoned fragments

say what a carefully constructed paragraph cannot

I write when I am weary

gingerly gripped by despair

turning a painful thought over in my mind

poking a bruise until I know exactly why and how it hurts

I write when my pain is mixed with joy

and when my optimism is studded with flashes of melancholy

I write to scream

I write to be silent

I write when I am alone

I don’t, when I am not

I treasure a late night spent in the company of

a ticking clock and my clacking keys

a soft, burning throbbing behind my eyes

and a gentle aching in my heart

I write to get it all out

but to keep it, while I do

writing

for me

is an undressing

it is peeling off a damp wetsuit

and standing

naked

on the beach