Musings

Sorry, no picture, but I did a 20 minute run/walk (run 2 minutes/walk 2 minutes) today, the first time since I hurt my knee early last summer that I’ve done a running work out. Felt good, but I’m tired now. Amazing how much 10 minutes of running will wear you out when you’re not used to it.

Tara and I just finished our ‘Taste of Vancouver Island Tour.’ 900+ miles in 5 days/4 nights. It was lots of fun and completely exhausting. We saw some beautiful country (photos to come soon) and some wildlife, including lots of bald eagles, a trio of river otters and a black bear.

Here’s the map of our trip (though we came back a different way, I’ll add that later, but don’t recommend it, 1.5 hours to travel 800 meters to the US border).

Click here to see the google map of our trip.

I’m glad to be home, but wouldn’t have missed the trip for the world and look forward to going back some time in the future.

Here we are after riding 40.4 miles last Saturday morning for the Windmill Ride. We averaged 16+ mph which was faster than we’ve done our training rides. It was a beautiful morning and we started early, so no traffic and not too many other riders. We also got a tri-tip lunch, which was yummy.

I finally got all the Kauai Trip photos up on flickr and I used Google Maps to create a map of our trip. Go to my Kauai Google Map and click on any of the places. If I have photos from that place, you’ll see a photo and you can then click on the link at the bottom of the description to see the photo set for that location.

We went to the flower festival in June (yes, I know, trying to catch up on this blog). We also went up the weekend before and saw the flower fields.

The flowers were beautiful this year and when Ted and I were cycling by them, you could smell them in the wind. We also flew through a lot of bees, so maybe the CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder) isn’t as bad as the bee industry is making it out to be. You can see the flower photos here: Flower Photo Set and the Festival photos here: Festival Photo Set.

Josie went to a camp at Occidental College run by the National Young Scholars Program. She did activities in her Discovery Strand about Myths and Fables and leadership activities (that she thought were boring).

She was very homesick the second night, but made it through, and wound up having a great time. She’s modeling the hat she decorated for her team, the Flaming Brains. She’s happy to be back and the animals are all happy she’s back (her cats kept yelling at me).

The pond from above

Jean La Fitte (our red eared slider turtle) is now in her new, spacious pond. We used a pre-formed plastic pond liner and a large pump (for a pond several times the size of ours). She has 3 goldfish to keep her company.

So far she’s been cruising around the deep part and doing a little exploring on the shallow sides. We’ll have to see if she can haul out with this set up or if we need to give her some more bricks and ramps.

Squeezal

Here’s our momma squirrel. She had four babies this year. She’s pretty used to us now and will stand on the front lawn on her hind feet waiting for us to bring out the nuts. Her babies are a bit more cautious and yell at us a lot.

Josie & her Mac & Cheese

Josie made dinner on Wednesday, the first of many to come. She got a cookbook from her Grandma Marta and made the Mac & Cheese recipe out of it. I have to say, it was the best mac and Cheese I’ve ever had, made with Dijon Mustard and Cream Cheese, very yummy.

The Cousins

Here’s a photo of the four cousins, the day after the Kauai Going Away Party.

So, you think that the three Benns will be much more tanned in the next photo?

We finally got everyone off the mainland or on their way. The car is probably still sitting in the lot waiting for a spot on a ship. Jim and the dogs should be on Hawaiian soil right now. I saw them off at 5 am this morning at LAX.

It was very interesting to watch the process of shipping a car and shipping dogs across the ocean to Hawaii.

We wish the Benns all the best on Kauai and we’ll be out to visit them in less than a month.