Taking a walk with me

Instead of inserting these pics into the previous posts, I'll just show them here. These are the paths I keep talking about that are within my neighborhood, and the hike I found that goes up the hill behind my neighborhood and into one of the parks, and the views from up on the hill.

The start of the biggest, most secluded path is about 2 blocks from my house. Today I found a way to get there in the common space behind the houses so I am off-street nearly the whole time. There are amazing tall trees there you have to pass under - I keep calling them redwoods, but I don't think they are. They are very straight, tall, big around, and have a red-ish tent, so they may be related. At any rate, this is just inside the path, near the start. Notice Audrey is ahead of me - she always likes to lead the way :)























Then you pass a little stream Audrey likes to get muddy in - it should have more water soon when the rains start. And you get to a part which is a bit more meadow-like. My neighbor says the eastern part of this neighborhood didn't have the trees cut; rather it used to be meadow - where our part has these amazing trees. Even though our part is older, I far prefer it. You can see one of the new mc-mansions I have to pass once I exit the path before I get to the park land and the hill just beyond.











It is hard to see in this pic (you can click on it to expand it) but this is the view from the top of the hill. To the left just out of view is the cascades and some peaks that are over 10,000 ft high, and to the right is the smaller coastal range with Mary's peak at just over 4000 ft.




Here is a close-up of the moss that is prevalent here. I think it looks amazing - it is stiff, like starched string. I was so surprised the first time I reached up to touch it and found it was so dry and hard - not soft and moist like I expected.

Taking Saturday off

Today my mom reminded me that I had made a promise to myself to try to take Saturdays off. I mentioned to her that I was going to work some today - how quickly I had forgotten the promise! I have managed not to work today - so thanks, mom, you were able to save me :) Tomorrow is going to be a long day though! I hope to fit in another hike but that will probably be it.

Today I rode my bike (here's a pic of it in front of my house) for the first real trip in my new town - I rode it downtown (about 3 miles one way) to a fall arts and music festival. It was delightful! I thought I'd be too tired to ride it back home and may take the city bus if needed, but it was great. I had to walk the last two blocks since my neighborhood is on a hill (I stopped to take this pic on the way home - the hill in the background is the one I've been hiking up, my neighborhood being at the base), but the ride was fairly easy. It took just over 30 minutes though - I am slow. I need to get a basket for the bike, and a thing to hold a water bottle. This town is great for biking - there are dedicated bike lanes on nearly every street. I felt safe the whole time, despite not doing in-town biking for a very long time.

Later in the day (after spending some more time enjoying my hammock and porch!) I decided to drive 15 miles to Costco to activate my gift membership and look around (I'd love a fire pit for the porch) - it's in the next town. I got there 10 minutes after they had closed, however, so I had to turn around and drive back home. It was such a beautiful day, though, and the valley is lovely - the length of the trip was only the time it took to listen to 5 great songs on my stereo while looking at beautiful scenery. Whenever I count driving distance by the number of songs I get to listen to, I always think of "The Point" - the time it takes to get to the pointed forest is exactly the time it takes to sing a song...

Points to you if you remember which song it is :)

I really love it here!

I have had a very busy week and Monday seems like it was long ago. Someone today asked me when I started my job and I said "last week" then I quickly corrected myself - "no, this week, but Monday seems like it was over a week ago!" Everyone here totally understands that is how it is at the start of the quarter, and compounded by the fact that I am new here. I couldn't ask for people to be more helpful or friendly than those in my new department.

Besides preparing for my fall course, I have had some fun this week. There was a college of science party on Wednesday, a department party on Thursday, and a lab party today - 3 days in a row! It has been nice to learn some names, socialize, and get free snacks :) I am still learning the names and faces of the graduate students, but since the faculty is fairly small (14 full time and 2 semi-retired plus 3 staff instructors) I know them mostly all fairly well already.

I used my kitchen for the first time Tuesday preparing for the department picnic. Thanks to the recipe of a friend of mine, I made very successful mini egg-custard pies with cinnamon and nutmeg sprinkled on top. They were very tasty and addictive, and somewhat healthy (at least for my low blood sugar due to the lower sugar and high protein content.)

The nicest part of the week, though, was probably in my last hour. After taking a well-needed rest upon arriving home, I spent a few hours collapsing boxes that I had piled in my garage, then re-organizing things there so I could start cleaning out the random boxes in the house. This was great progress - I finally feel the house is nearly settled. I suspect by the end of this weekend I'll be fully unpacked. This wasn't the nice part though.

When I went outside to load some things (I had borrowed) into my car, I noticed how beautiful the night sky looked, with all the stars clear and a beautiful moon. So I went outside and set up the camping hammock that mom had sent on the back porch, turned out all the lights and enjoyed my little corner of the world. It was so peaceful - it was the first time I had really enjoyed my yard - and probably my house, for that matter. I know I will love living here.

More on the food here...

I was talking to the lady who does our accounting today - and I have only scratched the surface. Apparently along the street bordering our side of campus with all the restaurants has pretty much every type of cuisine within 6 blocks of my office.

There is: mexican (fast food and sit down), chinese, thai, japanese, middle-eastern (again two types), vegetarian, hawaiian, a few pizza places, the soup place, a bar/burger place and more that I'm not remembering off hand.

Maybe I should start at one end and work my way down the street and try everything...

Today I had the left over pizza from last night at home. I stayed home to do some more unpacking (I really needed to find my teaching notes) and then took a really nice hike up the hill to the park near my house. I'll post pictures soon...

On my way to getting fat :)

I hope the title of this post is a joke - since I'll be hiking and doing other physical activities enough to counterbalance the eating...

I am writing this post from my favorite pizza place - probably anywhere in the world. I'm eating pizza with an olive oil base, cheese, artichokes and garlic - no sauce. It's yummy! With it, I'm drinking a sparkling apple juice that is nearly as good as the "appletizer" drink I became addicted to in Cape Town. This place has the best choices - 4 different bases, about 30 different toppings... you get the idea. At lunch time they have pre-made slices of lots of different flavors. This is actually the first place I ever ate here, when I came for my job interview. The decor is great, with creative murals like guys snorkeling in an underwater pizza paradise, and painted chairs with crazy and random themes.

I also had a terrific lunch today - there is a Japanese noodle and sushi place just across from my department. I had a great Bento (lunch "box") with edamame, stir-fried veggies, rice and tofu (each in their own little compartment) and a side of miso soup. There are other great lunch combos that I can't wait to try - and of course I'll try the sushi. There was a Bento place at Ohio State I kept intending to go to but only went to a few times - now is my chance to take advantage of one. This place seems a lot better, too, if only for the fact it is clearly a mom and pop (who barely speak English) who are lovingly running the place, and not some commercial operation.

Other great food places include an all vegetarian place with all sorts of crazy dishes inspired from mexican, asian, and american food. There's also a soup and salad place with 8 varieties of soup on any given day (and when I've been at least 3 are vegetarian). There's also a bar-style place with a great portobello sandwich if I get a craving for french fries :) These are all close walks to my office :) I haven't even mentioned the other decent places, or the places I'm not likely to try... Then there are the restaurants downtown, and the restaurants along the shopping strip... All this in such a small town?

Enjoying the quiet

So here I am, living in a small town in the middle of a rural valley. Not all the students have arrived yet - school does not start yet until a week from today, but I must say the peace and quiet of this town is terrific. I can walk around and across campus so easily, and there are so few cars on the road. I wonder if things will be much different next week? I recall how much nicer summers at ohio state were than during the regular school year just because of the quiet on campus. I think because the town is so small, though, that much of the quiet here will remain. Our student body is also about half the size of ohio state, too, so that helps!

One thing that was WONDERFUL was that Saturday we had the first home football game since I've been here, and I completely forgot about it. It was so quiet in my neighborhood and I didn't see or hear any evidence of a football game all day. I may actually start to appreciate the game under these conditions! At ohio state I lived way too close to campus and the crowds, parties, trash, and noise were horrible. One thing that is the same here as there is that there is no parking on campus during game days unless you're going to the game. Hopefully the weather will be ok enough that I can bike to campus those days if I need to go in. I hope to not work on Saturdays though - at least that is my goal :)

I'm listening to the people at the table next to me complaining about how loud their neighbors are - I am so glad I'm living where I am. So far the only thing I've heard from inside my house is a dog barking.

The weather here seems somewhat unpredictable in the sense that (except for June-Aug) there can be heavy cloud cover on any given day that may or may not burn off from the sun. If it burns off the weather will be great and warm; if it does not, it will be chilly and unpleasant. Today after getting my faculty ID I was shocked to realize that I was squinting when I reemerged from the admin building basement - the sun had actually managed to come out after a 4 day hiatus! At least, so far, the cloud cover has been interesting, and the air at ground level is still fairly clear, so it's not like an overall gray haze that I am used to from ohio winters.