So anyway, there I was in Iceland

Soon after this WOW moment

I landed the world's most civilized airport, where a helpful city bus meets every flight. Every one of them! I boarded one. 

And it took me to the moon

Have you ever wondered what a crazy person looks like after a 7 hour train escapade followed by a 9 hour flight then a bus ride to the moon of the next calendar day when/where she dips her tired bod into thermo heated water and scrubs her face with silica? 

You missed a spot, crazy

The anklet I picked up the second day on Maui, just 6,000 miles south 

As far as pit stops are concerned, this one was a sheer stroke of genius

After I'd sufficiently soaked and sipped and showered, I followed the lava brick road back to the magic spot where busses show up whenever you want one

I was deposited about half a mile from my hotel, the hotel I'd booked on a whim because someone I'd never met or heard of had said on her TripAdvisor review that she'd stayed there, and I think several stars were included in that review. 

I walked in to my 5th floor room, opened the big closet doors along the entry hall, and fell deeply, immediately in love

Everywhere I turned, I fell more deeply 

The hotel was called A Room with a View, for some reason

Go figure. 

I putzed around for a while then decided it was time for a meal, so I walked around the town indecisively for 3 hours. 

Popping in here and there

In search of the exact perfect meal, with no clue what I wanted to eat. 

I strolled up and down the streets

I strolled the land

and I strolled the sea

I actually walked into at least 2 restaurants and considered staying, but nothing felt quite perfectly like the exact thing that I didn't know I wanted. 

Until I found it

This was at 10pm

I got back to my room around 11 and settled in for what I knew would be a short night. 

I watched the late, late sunset from my pretty balcony and windows

And I hung around out there for a bit to watch the colors change as the sky darkened

Except that it didn't

This is as dark as it got

I went to bed at 12:30 and set my alarm for 3:30, so I guess technically it might have gotten dark for a few minutes in between those hours, but I didn't really sleep and I think I would have noticed. 

Before I knew it, it was time to get up from that comfy bed in that pretty room in that weirdly wonderful city and start the next leg of my journey. I had received a printed map of the half mile I had to walk (over cobblestones with my awful suitcase), it was the same route I had walked when I arrived, exactly one turn down exactly one street. I'd walked those streets for hours the night before, what could possibly go wrong? 

Well, yeah. I got lost. But when the bars closed at 4 there was no shortage of helpful drunk vikings to set me on the right course. Sigh. 

I flagged down a van that had the same logo that was printed on my ticket, and he took mercy on my poor dumb soul and drove me to the bus station, where I was in plenty of time for the shuttle to Keflavik, the world's most efficient airport.  I had some time to kill, and I was thirsty, so....

Until next time, Iceland. And oh yes, there will be a next time.

Ellie get your gun revisited

Who remembers this???

Just found it while working on whittling down my belongings.

This goes way back to the beginning....

The Best Day of the Year

My Girl Nancy called me on Saturday morning and told me her friend had just informed her, "Tomorrow is going to be The Best Day of the Year."

"The Best Day of the Year," I asked?

"The Best Day of the Year,"  Nancy replied. "Do you want to -- "

"Yes Please."

And so we did.

We were too busy at our beautiful and beloved Ocean Beach being merry and swimming and sunning and eating gigantic grinders and reading and reapplying massive amounts of sunscreen to think about taking photos, but we had fun afterwards. Oh boy did we ever. We had ourselves a Time.

The outtakes are sometimes even better than the final product . . .

I mean, right??

And here's the thing.

Once you're told that the day is going to be The Best Day of the Year?

Then, somehow . . .

. . . through luck or magic or kismet or just the great and glorious privilege of hanging with some of our favorite people in the world . . .

. . .  it happily, joyfully, entirely and utterly ends up being just that.

Watching the Wheels Go Round . . .

Although I feel like all I ever do is gleefully pull weeds and clear brush and slay bittersweet -- seriously, I am a bittersweet-slaying super hero -- all the photos I have are still-life. Peaceful, sedentary, non-moving, non-shoulder-wrenching sitting.

I guess it makes sense -- I mean, you can't really take photos when you're wresting snake-size bittersweet roots from the depths of the Earth -- but still. We really need to put down the lopper and pick up the camera every once in a while.

But in the meantime, according to my peaceful, sedentary, non-toiling photos, I'm just sittin' here . . .

. . . on the beach . . .

. . . hanging with Big Cac . . . 

. . .  watching the rain pour down from our bedroom window . . .

. . . at a bar.

Hey, wait, that photo reminds me of something . . . 

Five years ago, in Provincetown.

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go 'round and 'round.

I've been at it for years.

quest

It's been a mighty big week around here!

Look who arrived on my deck last Sunday:

To celebrate this guy:

And celebrate we did, and are in fact still doing. More comprehensive documentation of the visit and the celebrating will surely follow, but for now let's take a peek at our kick off activity way back a million years ago last Sunday, when we still had our innocence:

Where should I stick these probes, Beth? 

Now let me get back to the celebrating, would ya?

Mr. Peanut

I was in the deep south last week. Southern Georgia to be more precise. I went east for a training, which was held in the lovely small town of Sylvester, Georgia, claimed to be the Peanut Capital of the World due to its peanut production. So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that there was a crock-pot like device full of boiled peanuts in the gas station convenience store when I filled up - I wasn't in Kansas anymore. Or California.

Actually, though, I saw a lot more pecans than I did peanuts. There were various pecan farms dotting my 25-minute rural drive from hotel to training site each morning. But I opted for the easier mega Adock Pecans joint in Tifton to peruse my pecans, and wow, they didn't disappoint. Truckloads of pecans was right.

My people ended up with less than a handful. But if you've got peaches and pecans, you've got a little slice of Southern Georgia.

Because I am who I am, these are the only two photos I took all week. No lovely countryside, no smiling faces of my fellow trainees, no evidence of the amazing crab cakes or catfish or lightly fried green beans I ordered. You'll just have to trust me that it was all quite lovely, and a nice change of pace from chaotic Southern California. I don't know if I could live there, but I would happily go back to visit. And the next time I do, I'm going to see me the world's largest peanut....

Carnage

I am not clumsy, I do not fall, I do not break my body apart. I mean, typically I don't. There are exceptions, sure. But I haven't tripped over my own feet since I was a kid, when my feet grew before my body did and I stumbled over them walking across an empty room and boyohboy did Mom and Dad think that was funny.

This weekend, though? Yesterday I sliced up my fingah tips. I'm FINE. I'm totally fine. But I was bleeding everywhere so I band-aided up and then I couldn't type. And even though I always wear gloves out in the Field, I have some class of poison-ness on my wrist. And even though I always wear shoes -- wait, I never wear shoes -- no wonder I smashed my toe on the curb.

There were broken glasses and broken olive buckets and oh, there was blood. But still. It was the first beautiful weekend of the Season and we had ourselves a Time.

On Friday we had a drink-poo with Rachie-Rach, as per, and the next thing we knew a parade of lovelies marched into our Field. Unexpected, unplanned, unprecedented.

One day I'll tell you.

Saturday I showed off my golf swing.

No, I do not golf.

. . . and I photo-bombed the Madohme . . .

. . . and Kelly worked the rice paddies.

Earlier in the day adorable children ran amok out there . . .

. . . oh they're adorable . . .

. . . and nothing makes them happier than when their brother Ben runs amok with them.

Oh, wait, the weekend actually began on Thursday, back when it was still winter. (I saw somebody post, "We went from Seattle to Orlando in a weekend.") The Connecticut Keys, baby.

So, okay, there were broken glasses . . .

. . . but not before we gleefully drank from them . . .

. . . and at least the peonies survived.

Oooh a Field Shot!

And if friends and bubbly and beer* . . .

*beer

. . . and munchkins and gardening and peonies and shrimp and family and air golfing and blood weren't enough . . . 

. . . the Quote Book got some new additions. Have I blogged about our quote book? Have I? I will soon. Because the Quote Book is utterly the best.

If only, Mistah. If only . . . 

Plus? Blood.