Bienvenido California!

Marathon hurdle done.  Sights set on June 11th and 12th triathlons at Blue Lake: June 11th: Sprint: 750 m swim, 20 km bike, 5 km run, June 12th: Olympic: 1.5 km swim, 40 km ride, 10 km run.  In the meantime I'm nursing a bum knee from Eugene. Ran and biked yesterday, feeling the knee.  Hurt or hurting?

 Post Eugene we hit the road and headed to the beach where we ate fish Tacos with a lovely elderly stormwatcher couple from Texas who invited us onto their porch because "nobody likes sandy food," and serenaded us with ipod clarinet jazz and rambled on about the "olden days" eg: the 90s.
My post Marathon limp was wearing off and I slept like a sealion at the incredible Inn at Manzanita (cubbyhole bed, jacuzzi in the room, bakery breakfast), I got back on my legs for a morning beach run through the tiny tracks of sand critters in the sideways sun.  We basked on the beach and took first steps towards earning a spot on the tandem surfing pro-tour.  Next night was Pacific City, sneaking up on deer, eating tailgate sandwiches,  shotgunning beers, and getting rained on.  Then stanky sealion cave drive by, cinco de mayo, and charging to the redwoods.  California!  We slept with the giants who feel like big animals watching you sleep but are actually trees.

 California is amazing, it's got it all and is SO California.  Stoned people, redwoods, natural food stores, yoga, bright breezy houses, single pane windows, oak trees, eucalyptus, foggy coast lines.

 Healdsburg was biking and meeting chickens and goats and farmers market and sampling cheeses and eating blue cheese burgers and laughing with friends under the stars.

 And NOW I'm back in Midpines, teaching a month long EMT course outside Yosemite.  It's great to be back at the homestead, sleeping in the treehouse, horses outside, windchimes chiming, and back at work.