Bicycle built for two - with groceries!

So Steve is a smarty-pants - but ya'll knew that. But it's also a little known fact that he's a smarty with the sewing machine.

Check these out - panniers for the tandem so we can go to the grocery store. They fit a brown paper bag PERFECTLY. He made these this weekend out of an old dropcloth from the garage. Because one side of the muslin had been painted, they are quite sturdy. I found the wacky trim in my sewing cart and i did the heinous job of sewing that on, but Steve did the rest. Brilliant. We used them last night and they worked great!

I also don't know if ya'll got to see the wonderful etching on the bike seat that Steve gave to me for Christmas. It's a Brooks Saddle, special ladies edition, modeled after the ones they used to make in the late 1800s. Pretty darn cool. Are we bike geeks or what?

Sock Monkey Love

They are done! And since I gave them to Heather and Drew yesterday, I can officially post them. Now i just have to figure out how much yarn and time it would take to make a pair for big people. Hmmmm...

I'm addicted...

to my email. I know. I'm not important enough to get any emails worth of note, but Steve's right. I'm addicted. I check it WAY too many times during the day - especially when I'm home writing my diss, but that could be because writing and checking emails is better than writing and re-writing my papers. Some nights, i put the computer on sleep and don't even check it at all. But that is rare. Yes. I am addicted folks and I'm not sure why. I think it's because I'm nosy and i just want to know what's going on all the time. It's also a lovely form of procrastination, but so is this blog. So if ya'll are email addicts as well and could procure a reason why I'm addicted, then maybe i can figure out how to help myself out it. I think i also check the front page of the NYTimes way too much when I'm in front a computer as well. But i don't think that's coming from the same place of addiction.

Unless, of course, it all goes back to the fact that I'm nosy. But then again, I'm sure my mom would tell you I've always been that way. Could be how i developed my ability to follow two conversations at once at a large dinner table and comment on both. Poor Steve. He's a saint.

Death Valley - A Pretty Cool Place on Earth

So Steve and I were really excited that 1) we played hooky from work and went camping/hiking this weekend 2) that we went to Death Valley, even though it took us 6 1/2 hours in traffic to get there and 3) the new camera came in the mail just in time so that we could take over 200 photographs to share!!

It was hard to whittle it down to this many, and I know 20 pictures is a lot, but the expanse of this place was so incredible. The geology, the geography, and the constitution of the land would change so drastically from one minute to the next - and I really mean that. We would be driving around (and you have to through most of it because it's 3.4 millions acres of land!!) and not a 1/4 mile later, the landscape would be COMPLETELY different. and I mean different. We really wished that we had Steve's dad along so he could explain all the different rock formations and what things might be made of - we know he's a chemistry teacher, but figured it would have been more knowledge than we had.

If we were to go again, we would definitely rent a 4WD card with high clearance - a lot of the roads are only open to them - and i think that would be a much better way to explore the park. There are some hiking trails, but it's not like anything specific. You kinda just have to park on the side of the road, hike across the basin, and try to find an interesting way up a canyon or rock formation. We, however, didn't do this, and stuck to the few trails that were marked. (which was more than enough for one weekend).

Here are some pictures with some helpful captions to show you the way. I've done this chronologically so you can see what we did in the order we did it! Enjoy!

This is on the way there - you can see how much rain/snow we've gotten in San Diego County this year!

On the road to Death Valley - pretty bleak.

Bit chilly our first night there -

Sunrise on the mountains - taken from our camp site.

Looks like Death Valley also got rain - the little yellow flowers were all over this one section of the park.

Badwater Basin - 283 feet BELOW sea level.
At the Basin out on the salt flats (salt pan) whatever, it was cool.
On the salt flats looking towards Telescope Peak (11,000 some feet high)
Our new camera can take such close shots i think you can see the wrinkles on my forehead.
Steve on the salt flats - if you look closely you can see me too!
Okay - so the top arrow is pointing to the sign that says "Sea Level" and the bottom arrow is pointing to the parking lot for the entrance to the salt basin. Pretty cool.
Someone wanted to take our picture. After turning him down twice, we finally said ok. Steve was paranoid he just wanted to swipe the new camera. ;) I think he was just weirded out that we didn't care if we got a picture of the two of us since most of our pics are usually landscape. Luckily, it turned out nice.
In Golden Canyon. I think at the right time of day, this place probably glows. Do you see the moon?
The Sand Dunes at sunset.
Nothing like camping with the RV field behind you. Needless to say, next time we'll do some backcountry camping.
Remains of the encampment at Eureka Mine. This dude lived here from 1905 - 1945. Would you?
Hiking up Wildrose Peak - at 7600 feet - and in the snow!
From "Dante's View" - supposedly one of the best spots in the park. You can see down to the salt flats and across the Valley and even across to the mountain range we climbed (as seen above with the snow).
I'm not as good a sunset picture taker as my brother, but this is the sun sneaking away over Telescope Peak.

Hope you enjoyed the photos! We had a great time taking them. More often than not, our trips end up being about taking pictures rather than anything else -and you know, I'm okay with that. I mean, we may have to hike 4 miles to get a good shot, but that's just icing on the cake.

We're not exciting

So as I woke up this morning, ready to face the gloomy day that San Diego has presented me with, I thought to myself, I haven't added anything to the blog recently. Not that I'm sure that ANYONE is reading it (even if it was a way to keep the various family and friends updated) which brought me to the conclusion that blogs like this are very self-serving. I mean, it's not like I have wonderful stories to tell about our children (but since we don't have any yet, that's out), I don't have a higher purpose in sharing recipes, knitting patterns, or bicycle knowledge (although i'm sure that Steve could do the latter), and for the most part, I don't have witty things to say.

I'm not trying to be self-deprecating, but I realized that this whole blog thing is akin to someone finding a journal under a pillow or left on a cafe chair. You look around - is the person who wrote this diary here? Does s/he see me stealthily open its worn and well-loved binding to peek inside at it contents? and Oh my! What do we have here? A diary full of juicy stories!

um no. you know, that just never happens. unless of course, you're 14 and your diary is full of teenage angst and when you open it and read it 15 years later, you laugh and laugh and laugh. Okay, well, maybe that was just me. In fact, while unpacking here at our new house this summer, I found my old journals from high school and college. My favorite was finding the journal that I kept my first year in NYC. It was full of excitement and angst, and then there was this lovely cryptic last entry, that went something like this - "11/17/99 - So I finally went on a date with this guy Steve. It was really great - we had so much to talk about, he even drove me home back to Queens. My stomach was all a flutter all evening. I think i really like him."

And that was the last entry in the journal - and I have never kept a journal since then. :) I just sat in the office this summer and laughed so hard I almost cried. Talk about teenage diary. Ah, well. I guess we can show it to our kids years later and say, see, this the night that Mommy met Daddy. And that was however many years ago and he still hasn't married her yet. ;) Ha ha. Just kidding. Well, actually, probably not. But that's ok. It obviously is okay or maybe i would still be keeping an angst-filled journal!

Anyway, so the point is, if someone out there IS reading this blog, thanks for checking in every so often to see what we're doing, however self-serving this blog may be.

The good news is that we are headed to Death Valley tomorrow for 3 days of camping, because going camping in a place is that aptly named DEATH Valley just sounds eerie and exciting all rolled into one. Steve finally took a big leap and after 2 years of hemming and hawing, ordered a new digital camera for us. He got a steal of a deal - at all places - Amazon. However, the sad thing is that we think the camera is to be delivered to his office tomorrow afternoon.... and we are leaving for Death Valley in the morning. Crap. Oh well. We still have our oldie, but goodie, and I'll post some picture of Death Valley desert goodness when we return. Maybe then I'll have something interesting to talk about.

Now it's onto the dissertation that never ends.

Go Barack Go!

Needless to say, we are pretty darn stoked about Obama's 4 state win this weekend. If the dude can win in freaking Nebraska (!!) I think this country is ready for something different, wouldn't you say?

Steve and I actually are even donating a small bit to the campaign - and this is the first time that i've ever considered doing it - always not really having the money, always assuming that it wouldn't do anything, never been politically charged enough about our democratic candidates to give them my hard-earned cash.

But this year is different. I'm sure this isn't new to you more political minded souls, but i guess for the first time, i really feel like he can do something. Maybe that's more hopeful that the case maybe, but hey, what's wrong with hope?

I'll send pictures when we get our Obama T-shirts. :)

I shouldn't need to tell you, but are you voting?

Duh. Like any of you that would read this blog wouldn't vote, but I'm rather fired up about it this year - I've even been dropping hints to my students. Certainly not influencing them one way or the other, but at least encouraging them to get out there. (It's in untapped market, ya'll).

Steve and I were driving to work yesterday and listening to all the coverage, which is getting a bit overwhelming, even for NPR, and can't believe that we heard ourselves saying, well, if we had to, John McCain wouldn't be all bad as a president. Why are we Democrats like this? Why do we always look at the situation and think, you know, if we did lose, because hey, it's certainly possible, which Republican candidate would we not mind having? Why can't we be this amazing, well-oiled machine like those Republicans? I used to think that it was because Democrats were all over the place on issues - from conservation Democrat to very liberal, and that we could never coalesce, and now with the Republicans all over the map, I'm not sure what the reason is.

Then of course, the ridiculous option that if we DO get a Democrat in the White House, they are going to have clean up so much crap that maybe we should have another Republican, have them take all the crap, and then only be there for 4 years and then get a Democrat for another 8. You know, hedging our bets. Which is also a ridiculous theory.

Argh. What's a liberal gal to do?