So, what have you seen?

When you're traveling in Yellowstone, the first question you get asked by fellow travelers is "So, what have you seen?" Don't be fooled; they're not asking about the scenery. In Yellowstone, "What have you seen?" really means "What animals have you seen?" The bigger, the better. The proper response is, of course, to rattle off a list of all the big game you've encountered in the park. Extra points for wolves, grizzlies, or a close encounter while hiking. It reminds me a bit of kids collecting baseball cards -- I have a Mark Maguire, a Johnny Damon, and so on -- with a whiff of both childlike excitement and competition to it.

Anyway, in the spirit of competition, which I never have been able to resist, here's my list. All photos were taken with my Canon Rebel XSi (pretty much the best Christmas / birthday present ever, from my awesome family), mostly with a 300mm zoom lens.

Black Bears. This was the first bear we saw. I spotted it right after Mike bragged that he was going to kick my ass at our who-can-spot-the-big-animals-first contest. (For the record, I totally won.)

ETA: I am told by my father that this bear is, in fact, a grizzly, and not a black bear. Apparently, you can tell by the hump in the shoulder area. So, I guess I saw both black bears AND grizzlies, after all :-)

Bald Eagles nesting! Almost as soon as we drove into the park, but I didn't get any good pictures.

Moose. One male, with a full set of antlers, plus several females, including one feeding with her baby right next to the trail while we were out hiking.

Who knew that baby moose were so darn cute?

Osprey

Also, osprey nests aplenty. Their nests completely crack me up. Look at this:

How is it a good idea to build your nest like this, all exposed to the elements and other birds? Does the Osprey have any natural enemies? Also, this nest is built on top of a platform clearly man-made for this purpose. We think it's to keep them from nesting on top of telephone and electrical poles. Not so good if repair work needs to be done -- ospreys aren't the kindest birds ever.

Ravens, nesting on the side of a cliff

Pronghorn

Elk

Mule Deer

Bison Too freakin' many to count.

(FYI -- this picture was not taken with the zoom lens. They tell you to stay away from the Bison, but the damn bison aren't so great at staying away from you!) Honestly, we were really excited about the bison at first. But after about your 100th bison, they stop being so exciting. Well, except for the ones that walk right through your campsite:

And the ones that hold up traffic for several minutes. Look at that adorable baby! You can't see it in this photo, but he's looking very nervously at a line of about a dozen cars waiting for him to cross the road. Right after I took this picture, daddy came up behind junior and nudged him the rest of the way across the road.

Pika

Yellow Bellied Marmots, which make me laugh every single time I see one. There's something so . . . earnest about them.

Zillions of ground squirrels and chipmunks. I have no pictures of these, although one climbed right up on Mike's lap in an attempt to steal his granola bar one afternoon. Couldn't get my camera out fast enough to capture that Kodak moment.

A couple of garter snakes and a racer or two. Also no pictures. They move too fast. We didn't see any poisonous snakes, though, which is a good thing in my book. Mike has that quintessential boy quality of always wanting to touch things that are squirmy, slimy, and generally icky. And, I gotta say, there's a lot I'd do for my friends, but sucking the venom out of a snake bite is totally not on that list.

Great horned owls

Coyotes

Including a totally coo-worthy baby. Mama was nowhere to be seen with this little guy. Also, he was hanging around right underneath the owls we saw. Perhaps hoping for a baby to fall while it was learning to fly?

Beaver dams (the first I've ever seen). No beaver, sadly, although we stood and watched for a while, hoping to see one poke its head out.

We could also see where the beavers had been hard at work chewing down new trees. Ambitious little guys, huh?

Not pictured is the jumping mouse we found in our tent one night. I was too busy shrieking like the girl that I am to get my camera. I totally made Mike get in the tent and chase the little guy out.

Beyond that, we heard wolves from a distance while we were backpacking near the Lamar Valley, but we didn't see anything other than the entrance to a den. We also didn't see a grizzly. We DID see this, though:

I wanted to bring it home SO bad! I think next to Hawaii, where they threaten you with Pele's curse if you so much as think about taking any lava rock home with you, Yellowstone does the best job of anywhere of keeping people from taking stuff like this home. How is it even possible that this amazing skull is still out there and that no one has snuck it into their car by now?

Also, I'll tell you what. The wildlife certainly has right-of-way in Yellowstone, and they're not afraid to use it. In addition to the "bear jams" when someone spotted a distant animal and pulled over to see it, I saw wildlife crossing the road and stopping traffic many, many times while we were there.

It's sort of funny, though, that I write about the animals first, as they were not at all my favorite part of this trip. I mean, the first few times we saw a big animal, it was kind of exciting. And it would be impossible to go to Yellowstone and not have a lot of animal sightings, unlike other parks I've been in. But the thrill wore off fast for me. Later this week, on to our other adventures!

Yellowstone, last minute

So I spent the last week in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Totally spur of the moment. My good friend and frequent camping partner, Mike, called me up a couple weekends ago, told me he was taking this trip, and invited me. I said no, initially, thinking there was no way I could get time off work last minute, but it turned out that this was actually a perfect week to take vacation. So off we went.

We left the Bay Area on Friday afternoon and drove straight through. Took us about 17.5 hours. Drovee across the Nevada desert in the dark, taking turns at the wheel while the other drove. Stopped sometime in the middle of the night for coffee at a McDonalds in Lovelock, Nevada (creepy, creepy, creepy), where we went through the drive through behind a couple of meth-head girls getting a huge bag of food, on foot. Had breakfast at 5 AM at a tiny diner with a super-friendly waitress in Twin Falls Idaho. And washed up in West Yellowstone somewhere around 11 AM Saturday. I can't say I recommend the driving straight through thing -- I was pretty beat all day on Saturday. The good thing about is that we didn't actually have to see Nevada because it was so dark. Mike says I'm exaggerating, but I think pretty much the entire state of Nevada is creepy as all hell. It's utterly beyond me why anyone would want to live there (sorry Amy, if you're reading this).

Since the whole thing was very last minute, we didn't do much planning. I was a bit nervous about getting campsites last-minute in the park, and we were prepared to camp on National Forest land outside the park (like Yosemite, Yellowstone is surrounded on all sides by National Forests). But it turns out that we were there just before the busy season, so it wasn't an issue. We camped in either Yellowstone or Grand Teton every night except our last, including one night backpacking in the Yellowstone backcountry. Spent 4 days in Yellowstone, 2.5 in Grand Teton / Jackson Hole. Did lots and lots of hiking, animal-viewing, photo-taking, and, yes, driving. Had a lovely time.

Anyway, over the next couple of weeks, I plan to post pictures of the trip a bit at a time. I took over 2000 photos (!), most with the amazing DSLR camera my very generous family gave me for Christmas last year. But it's gonna take me a while to sort through them. Stay tuned.

Memorial Day: Canyon Creek

So for Memorial Day, I headed out on my first non-snow camping trip of the year. Usually, I'd have been on several trips at this point, but triathlon training has definitely occupied a lot of my time this spring. Now that summer's here, though, and the snow is finally melting in the Sierras, backpacking and camping are back on my priority agenda.

Anyway, Memorial Day weekend morning, K. and I headed north. We took the back roads to avoid the I-5 misery (a good plan, as I can only amuse myself by identifying the fruit and nut trees in the orchards that line I-5 for so long). We didn't have much of a plan - basically knew we wanted to go somewhere in the Whiskeytown area, since neither of us had been there before, and we figured we'd sort out the camping thing one way or another. The nice thing about California is that there's tons of national forest land here, and it's almost all open for "dispersed camping." Basically, you can pull off the road and pitch a tent almost anywhere. It's my secret for always finding a campsite when I go to Yosemite (Stanislaus National Forest, yay), and it has the added bonus of camp without a single RV, boombox blasting Lady GaGa, or drunken frat boy in sight. Woo!

First stop was Whiskeytown National Recreation Area. Whiskeytown Lake is astonishingly beautiful -- I really had no idea. It's go the same clarity and blue-ness of Tahoe, although it's smaller, nestled in the hills with snow-capped mountains framing it. It looks like something out of a storybook.

The day we were there, we saw dozens of sailboats gliding across the surface of the lake, which is a little surreal when they're framed by snow-capped mountains in the background. We tried to do a hike to one of Whiskeytown's supposedly spectacular waterfalls, but were stymied by overflowing streams (200% of normal, as we later saw on a sign in Trinity National Forest). We hadn't brought hiking poles or water shoes with us, so we ended up having to turn back because we felt that the stream crossing simply wouldn't be safe. And K. has been airlifted out of a hiking once in his life, so no need to risk a repeat. K. did spend a while teaching me how to take great water pics with my Christmas-present DSLR that has been sorely neglected this spring. I now know how to blur water artistically, which is fun.

All the campgrounds at Whiskeytown were full. Unsurprising, since it's one of the biggest camping weekends of the year. But what was surprising was how uncrowded it felt, despite that. I think this area is a bit of a secret. Folks from the Bay area and Sacramento tend to head East or South, to Tahoe and Yosemite and Big Sur, and they forget all about this area. I'd rather be here than Tahoe, though, anytime. No cheezy motels and casinos, no crowds, much more unspoiled beauty.

Anyway, we pressed onward into Trinity National Forest, where they allow dispersed camping (unlike the National Rec Area, which has protections in place closer to what you'd see in a National Park). K. is a bit of a map geek, and had figured out by looking at topo maps that this area was likely to have great river-side places to camp. And boy was he right. After poking around a bit down some dirt 4WD roads, we discovered pretty much the perfect campsite, right next to Canyon Creek. You just won't get a campsite this ideal in a campground.

Before we found this perfect site, we first pitched our tent in a wooded area nearby. It was lovely, but the mosquitos were BAD, and there wasn't a great swimming hole. So when we went out for a walk after setting up camp, we decided to move. . . . but we really didn't want to take down the tent and put it up again . . . leading to this:

Is this the oddest thing you've ever carried on the top of the 4-Runner, K?

Anyway, the tent made it safely to our new campsite, where we spent the next 2 nights relaxing and taking icy cold dips in the creek. I've swum in some cold water in my life (Lake Superior -- brrr. Or San Francisco Bay, anyone?), but nothing could compare to this. I'm pretty sure the water we were swimming in had been snow about 5 minutes earlier. Anyway, swimming might be a bit of an exaggeration. It was more of an ohmygodthisissofreakincold jump in, squealing, go under, and get the hell out kind of thing. No photographic evidence, I'm afraid. I was too busy shrieking like a girl to even think of the camera.

Canyon Creek is a tributary, I believe, of the Trinity River, and it's pretty much gorgeous the whole way along. All weekend, we were surrounded by scenery like this:

Or this:

We hiked in the Trinity Alps, and K. took what might be my favorite picture of myself ever.

Plus the dogwoods were in full bloom up there. Just lovely.

Monday, on our way home, we took a detour in order to drive along the Trinity River. I rafted on the Trinity last year, when the flow was quite low. This year, it was ridiculously high. So high, in fact, that we didn't even see any rafters out there at all, I suspect because the conditions were so fierce. But the river did hold one final surprise for us. As we were driving along 299, we saw 2 bald eagles sunning themselves and fishing from a cliff above the river. With the help of my awesome zoom lens, Ken caught this amazing picture:

Triathlon, Take 2

Yesterday, I ran my second triathlon, the Tri for Fun at Rancho Seco Park in Herald, CA. This was originally meant to be my first race, before I decided to do Napa last month. And a lovely race it turned out to be. Although first I had to get over this:

Why, yes, those ARE the cooling towers for a nuclear power plant. Rancho Seco Nuclear Generating Station, to be exact. It's actually decommissioned, and has been since 1989, but there's still something more than a little surreal about swimming in the shadow of those towers. In fact, the lake we swam in was actually built (or expanded from a small pond) to act as an emergency water source for the plant, should there ever be a fire. On my way out to the first turn buoy in the swim, I was actually sighting off the towers. So if I have 3-eyed babies someday, y'all know why!

(This and all the other photos included in this post were taken by Ken Emanuel, who played personal photographer to me for this race. He rocks, huh?)

This race was another "sprint" distance triathlon, which is basically anything under "Olympic" distance (1 mile swim, 25 mile bike ride, 10K run). In this case, that meant a half mile swim, 16 mile bike, 3.1 mile run.

I was very, very nervous about the swim. I am still a relative beginner as a swimmer, having only learned freestyle in October, and the swim was mentally brutal during the last race I did -- so cold and crowded and adrenaline-soaked that I completely panicked and nearly got bailed out by the rescue kayakers. This one, by comparison, was a breeze. For starters, the water was so much warmer. Warm enough, even, that my friend Emily and I posed for pictures in the water before the race:

There were plenty of people without wetsuits, but I wore mine, since that's how I'd been training (and it's a nice security blanket to know that your wetsuit will keep you floating even if you completely freak during the swim). Anyway, I felt strong right from the start (I think I'm somewhere in this picture!):

I felt strong in the middle:

And I finished strong, too:

took 5 minutes off my swim time from the last time around, coming in at 23 minutes. I'm certainly not going to be winning any swim races anytime soon with that time, but it's not far off what I would do in the pool, so I'll take it!

Next was the bike. 16 miles, gently rolling hills through farm country. Please notice that I am riding a beastie of a hybrid bike. It weighs an absolute TON. Clearly it wore me out, since in both of the pictures Ken took of me coming in from the bike ride, my mouth is wide open as I gasp for air :-)

And finally, the run. Heading out, and feeling great! (Especially when I saw Ken, cheering and taking pictures!)

Look at the spring in my step here:

This is actually kind of bad running form, so don't tell my coach, okay? I'm supposed to be working on NOT being so springy when I run! Anyway, this was about 20 seconds in, when I was still really psyched to be on the run. In reality, though the run ended up being the hardest part of this race (unusual for me, as a life-long soccer player). It was HOT by the time I got out on the run, which followed a red dirt road out into the hills for 3.1 miles. I was pretty much dying the whole time. Even had to walk up a couple of the bigger hills, which frustrated me.

I was SO happy when I saw that finish line, I totally sprinted to the end.

And I finished! Again! I guess this means the first time wasn't just a fluke, huh? I'm a real, live triathlete. Go me! (BTW, my actually time was closer to 2 hours, since I started the swim in the 5th wave, so the clock had already been running for 20-25 minutes).

Anyway, in closing, this little girl's sign is awesome. And true, true, true. This triathlon thing has definitely not been easy, but I'm so, so, so glad I jumped in and decided to do it.

Daily Dose of Gratitude #71: Trinity National Forest Edition

1. Whiskeytown Lake. Just as gorgeous as Lake Tahoe, and with the added bonus of no casinos, cheesy motels, or massive vacation homes on its shores. How have I never been there before?

2. The perfect campsite: secluded, right on a gorgeous river so you can fall asleep to the sound of water rushing by, the scent of pine trees and clover.

3. And while I'm at it, the most comfortable camp bed I've ever slept in. (Don't tell anyone, but I maybe dragged my down comforter and my feather pillow out to the woods with me. And I didn't regret it for a minute, either!)

4. Washing off the sweat and grime with icy dips in a river flowing with water that was literally snow less than 24 hours ago.

5. Seeing neither hide nor hair of whatever left this beastie of a footprint a little up the river from our campsite. (It's hard to see scale in this picture, but the print was bigger than the palm of my hand. Don't worry, though, Mom, I'm pretty sure it's coyote, not mountain lion -- you can't see the claws in a mountain lion footprint. Well, unless they're really, really angry ;-)

Daily Dose of Gratitude #70

1. Making someone's day.

2. Drinks with an old friend, with whom you've recently reconnected, and discovering you still laugh together just as much as you used to.

3. Wildflowers in a vase by the window.

4. A man who can fix things

5. The thrill of anticipation before a much-needed weekend away.

Daily Dose of Gratitude #69

1. A sprig of fresh mint in my water bottle. Yum!

2. A beautiful after-work bike ride yesterday -- sunshine, eucalyptus-scented air, and Tiburon's bazillion dollar views, all for the price of some muscle power and sweat.

3. Beating the top team in the league at soccer last night. (Really, really nice after a full season of getting our asses kicked on my other team!)

4. The fact that on my running route, I see the following fruit trees/vines: fig, apple, orange, strawberry, lemon, lime, grapefruit, tangerine, buddha's hand, banana (!), guava, plum, avocado, blackberry, grape, apricot, passion fruit, persimmon, blueberry, and pomegranate. Basically, I live in paradise, except with more traffic. :-)

5. Josh Ritter's new album, So Runs the World Away. You must, must, must go listen to it immediately because it is utterly awesome. Especially the song "Long Shadows"

Daily Dose of Gratitude #68: Morcom Rose Garden edition

One of my favorite things about moving to a new neighborhood is discovering its secrets. A few weeks ago, I stumbled across a beautiful rose garden in my neighborhood. It's nestled down in a ravine, hidden among houses and condos, and you never even know it's there until you're right on top of it.

Tonight, I finally made it back there with my camera, and I am grateful for roses. Lots and lots of roses. (And yes, it does smell like heaven there, too!)

Bonus points to anyone who can tell me why my images look so faded on blogger compared to how they look in iphoto.

Daily Dose of Gratitude #67

1. Strong legs, strong lungs, and a strong heart.

2. Finally having reached the point where running 6+ miles isn't really that big of a deal. I'm not gasping for breath, my calves aren't painfully tight, and I can mostly just GO. (Now if only I could figure out how to prevent the hot spots and blisters!)

3. Grilled chicken with home-made Tzatziki sauce and quinoa for dinner. Yum!

4. Lake Merritt. This is where I've been doing my runs lately. Gorgeous. It's about a 1.5 mile run from my house, then exactly 5K (3.1 miles or so) around the lake, and another 1.5 miles home. Great after work loop. If I'm only up for a short run, I drive or ride my bike over there and just do the around-the-lake part.

5. The pride I still feel when I look at my race number from last weekend pinned on my bulletin board. :-)

Holy cow, I just did a TRIATHLON!!!

Y'all! I just did a triathlon. I'm still a little in shock. But there's totally photographic evidence. See:

That's ME. With a race number pinned on my shirt and a medal around my neck! Did I mention that I still can't quite believe I actually did it?

I've actually been training for a couple months now, but just never got around to writing about it. I have to say, this is something I never, ever thought I'd do. I've always loved soccer and hiking and being active, but racing? Not really my thing. I didn't even learn to swim for real until the past October, and I think I took driver's ed and learned to ride a bike right around the same time!

Anyway, I actually started training on a whim -- couldn't find a gym I really liked in my new neighborhood, was tired of sitting on the sidelines at my ex's triathlons (I'm not really a sit-on-the-sidelines kinda girl, in case you haven't noticed), and happened to stumble across this 13-week triathlon training program being offered by a local running store, See Jane Run. We have three team workouts a week -- a pool workout, a track workout, and a long workout on the weekend (bike rides, open-water swim, longer runs, or some combo). It's been SO, SO, SO motivating to have set workouts -- I push myself so much harder when I'm with a group than I ever could on my own -- it's part of what I've always loved about playing soccer.

Anyway, we're actually only in week 8 of training now, but my awesome workout partner, Emily, convinced me that I was ready for a race now, and she was totally right. Today, I swam a half mile in open water, rode 11 hilly miles, and then ran a hilly 5K. All in a ROW! And ohmygosh was it HARD. I mean, physically, it was challenging, but mentally, it went well beyond challenging. Have you ever tried to swim a half a mile in 60 degree water, with other swimmers flailing all around you? It literally takes your breath away. I had a few bad minutes early in the swim, in which I had to talk myself out of a panic attack a quarter mile from shore (it didn't help that they mis-set the course so that the swim was longer than it was supposed to be -- SERIOUSLY???). But I toughed it out and made it through the swim, the bike, and the run. And, look, I only bled just a little! ;-)

(Bike mishap -- chain slipped off the gears midway up a hill, I wiped out -- oops).

Anyway, now that I've done my first race, I've been sitting here all afternoon glowing with pride, and thinking about how full of awesome "first times" this whole training experience has been. It's not just the race -- It's all the ways I've pushed myself and succeeded along the way. Among the firsts:

-- running 3 miles straight and thinking it was totally easy.

-- running 6 miles straight, ever.

-- running while chatting with my running-mates and actually enjoying it (maybe because I now have the lung strength to talk and run at the same time!) Turns out, running is much more fun when you're hearing about so-and-so's boyfriend drama while you go. Who knew?

-- running and actually enjoying it. It might help that I've been doing my running in stunning venus. Our regular workout track is high in the Berkeley hills, with an amazing view of San Francisco at sunset across the bay, our weekend workouts are in places like Tiburon, and I've been doing my independent runs around Oakland's Lake Merritt or in Frederick Law Olmstead-designed Mountain View Cemetery.

-- putting on running tights and thinking, huh, my butt actually looks kinda cute in these. :-)

-- wearing a wetsuit. Someone should really video tape us trying to get in and out of those things. It's comedy gold! I get the giggles every time. Me, halfway into my wetsuit before the race today:

-- having to douse myself in body glide to keep said wetsuit from chafing

-- swimming in the San Francisco Bay (!)

-- swimming in the SF Bay and enjoying it -- seriously, y'all, there's nothing like being out on Treasure Island early on a Saturday morning, watching the sun turn San Francisco all rosy and knowing that you're doing something that very few people would even think about doing. Yesterday, I had to do a quick swim to save myself for today's race, and I was actually SAD to get out of the water!

-- Riding my bike more than 15 miles at a go. And then more than 20 and more than 30 . . .

-- Wearing cycling shoes

-- Riding with clipless pedals on my bike. Despite what the name might indicate, clipless pedals are actually pedals that you clip your foot into while you're riding, kind of like a ski binding. I think perhaps the bike dude who named these pedals didn't know the meaning of the suffix "-less."

-- wiping out horribly on clipless pedals while learning to use them, giving myself the nastiest bruise I've ever had. (Mom, avert your eyes) See:

Actually, that first picture doesn't really do it justice. How 'bout this one?

The good news is, triathlon training is apparently turning me into a superhero, because that baby was almost completely GONE only 9 days later. My bruises never heal that fast!

-- and then, after a few tears, getting back on my bike and keeping on going to finish the hardest ride of the season (3 Bears Loop in Orinda. The "bears" in the ride name are the 3 big-ass hills, papa, mama, and baby).

-- not being terrified of riding uphill anymore. Or downhill for that matter -- I don't ride the brakes nearly as much as I used to!

-- swimming at the public pool. Which, as it turns out, is actually quite nice if you can ignore the skanky locker room. It's a heated outdoor pool, open year-round, with nice long lanes so you can get a good rhythm going.

-- sharing a swimming pool lane with someone else (actually 5 someone elses at my regular team workouts!) I only learned to swim in October, by thrashing about in the pool at the very swanky gym in my old neighborhood. I never had to share a lane there -- the pool was always practically empty. Which is good when you look like an injured seal as you try to learn freestyle.

-- doing swimming drills (I kind of love fingertip drag. Catch-up still gives me water-snarf syndrome, though)

-- swimming a mile straight, no stopping (just two days ago!)

-- Swimming butterfly stroke (yesterday!)

-- Swimming fly kick on my back -- fun!

-- Doing "brick" workouts (where you go straight from one workout to the next --e.g. biking to running. Called a brick because your legs feel like bricks at first when you switch events, supposedly, although that has not been my experience at all)

-- thinking that it's no big deal to ride my bike 25 miles and then run immediately afterward

I think when I started this whole thing, I just thought it'd be a good way to motivate myself to work out. But as it turns out, I've gotten SO much more out of it than that. I mean, first of all, I thought I would just do the easiest version of each of the workouts (they often give us a beginner option and an intermediate/advanced version) -- those looked hard enough. But as it turns out, I almost always do the longer version of the workout, and both enjoy it and find myself completely capable of it. There has been a time in almost every workout when I thought I maybe couldn't finish, or when I wanted to just stop because this or that was hurting or I was tired or whatever. But I've finished all of them. And now, today, I finished a race.

You'll have to excuse me while I go glow with pride some more:

Daily Dose of Gratitude #66

1. The smell of tomato plants and marigolds.

2. A fresh washed bedspread, dried in the sun (the cat is grateful for this, too!)

3. Working from home. (Please don't ask me what time I changed out of my PJs this morning. I'd rather not confess to that little gem :-)

4. Strong legs and gorgeous scenery -- Had an absolutely lovely 9 mile bike ride in Tiburon followed by a 4 mile run in the Berkeley hills last night. Views of the sun setting in San Francisco, so very grateful that I was out in the open air rather than stuck in one of the thousands of cars I could see crawling across the Bay Bridge.

5. Wonderful, amazing, happy friends (new and old)

Daily Dose of Gratitude #65

1. Swimming a mile straight, no stopping. The longest I've ever done.

2. A new handmade dress (terrible pic -- sorry! I promise it's adorable, though :-)

3. Fizzy pink drinks. (This pic is actually from February, when all I wanted to do for my birthday was to drink something pink and fizzy and play skee-ball. Skee-ball didn't happen, but I did get my pink and fizzy. Must get back up to wine country soon!)

4. Trivia night victory. Free beer, yeah!

5. The kind of incredibly satisfying kind of tired you feel only after a really amazing workout.

Daily Dose of Gratitude #64

1. An abundance of my favorite flowers at the farmer's market (and cheap, too!)

I am utterly charmed, by the way, by the misspelled sign.

2. Hiking with a good friend and seeing her old-school happy after several very tough months:

3. Starry night, wonderful conversation, live bluegrass in the background.

4. Dogs riding shotgun, tongues lolling, ears flapping back in the wind.

5. Yellow shoes.

Daily Dose of Gratitude

1. Tide low enough on my way across the bridge in the morning that I can see seals sunning themselves on shelves of exposed rock.

2. An awesome after work swim with women from my triathlon team. The longest I've ever swum in one work-out, in fact (nearly a mile and a half!)

3. And realizing that I'm strong enough right now to do a triathlon, even though I've still got 6 weeks before my scheduled race.

(Is there anyone who doesn't look a little silly in neoprene?)

4. The fact that I work out with a bunch of women who are impressed rather than horrified by the truly fabulous bruise I gave myself on Saturday, when I had a, shall we say, "unplanned exit" from my bike. (Sorry, no picture. My mom reads this blog, and I fear if she saw the bruise, she'd come out to California and let all the air out of my bike tires to keep me from ever getting on the confounded machine again.) (Love you, Mom!)

5. A chicken gyro with extra tzatziki sauce.

6. $3 bunches of brilliantly orange farmer's market ranunculus brightening my bedroom.

(An aside -- I just googled ranunculus to make sure I was spelling it right and learned that the gorgeous, ruffly ranunculuses (ranunculi?) that I get at the farmer's market are a type of buttercup. I had no idea - they look so different! )