Celebration and Indulgence

The title pretty much says it all. I went to see Em for a quick weekend because we had a lot to celebrate: I just finished my Masters (thank you, God) and she just got accepted into a renowned MA program at UC Davis (Lord, help her).

So, of course, Napa Valley was involved. She arranged a tour of 3 wineries for us, scheduled around lunch, and basically I still haven't fully recovered.

I've only been to Napa Valley once before, and I love how each winery handles tastings differently. The Cakebread Winery gave us a (really fun) educational talk about the geography of California and how that affects the grapes grown in each area. They also let us walk around their beautiful garden.

Take a look at this artichoke in bloom. Isn't it crazy beautiful?

We started our day with a sparkling wine tasting at Mumm Winery, which was my favorite. Not that the tasting process was better than other places, per se, but because I really love the bubbly. And the view. :)

We finished the day at Paraduxx Winery, which had beautiful grounds to lounge around in. Also, here's a worthy side note: they served us a cheese called "buzzed" that was rolled in espresso grounds and a bit of black pepper. I know it sounds weird, but it was so good! Our hostess said they got it from Whole Foods.

And speaking of tasty, we stopped by Bouchon bakery before heading home and stocked up on goodies for the weekend. O. M. G. I think I gained 5 pounds and I don't think I care.

Not ready for summer school to start. Not ready to teach again. Need to go back to drinking wine.

Every Year Gets Better

No, this isn't a post about aging, although the title makes it sound that way. Ha.

The adulting has started with the yardwork, friends. We're switching it up this year though, and are starting out back instead of out front.

Remember last summer when I transformed the backyard swamp into, well, a bare dirt pile? Well, we haven't done anything with that yet. But that's not the focus of this post. There's a small strip of land right behind the house, between our house and the fence separating us from the neighbors. I've ignored it entirely ever since we've lived here, and that's why it was my starting point this season.

See what you think about these small changes.

Before

After

I pulled up all the weeds and put down barrier. Eventually we'd like to put down pretty landscaping rocks, but that's low on the ole to do list.

This change is also strategic because now we can see plants and flowers outside of the living room, dining room, and kitchen windows. It makes a difference!

I'm slowly but surely building up the inside plants as well. The key to sneaking them past G is to go gradual. Not to make any sudden movements that might draw his attention. Not to talk about them or look at them too often or, God help us, not to swat at anything that might be misconstrued as a bug inside the house.

A few weeks ago a student brought me some African violets. I tucked them away in the side room and laid low while I researched re-potting tips and supplies. As G was cleaning out the gutters yesterday, I made my move. With the theme music from Mission Impossible playing in the background, I quickly re-potted them and set them up in their new home.

See the little Chinese girl in the middle? We got her in Vancouver, at the Classic Chinese Garden. She's so cute; I just love her.

Nice changes so far, right? Now we just have to foam roll, take Ibuprofen, and stretch out our muscles before tackling the front of the yard. One of these days I really will do something with the dirt pile out back. But not today.

Call Me Ishmael

Because I chased whales all day. In Vancouver.

We spent the morning with this local pod of killer whales, known as orcas (also the name of the lil old lady bun bun we used to have, do you remember her?). They were known as the T101 group: one small female and three enormous males that all travel around these waters together.

At one point G leaned over and said, "How much of our lives have we spent waiting on animals?"

Um, a lot.

But this was so worth it! These whales don't migrate; they live in this area and simply swim around looking for food. So, once we found them we were able to just slow down and hang out with them. They surface and breathe "regularly"a few times in a row before diving deep for about 10 minutes or so before they resurface. When they come up for air, you are able to see more than their dorsal fin; you can see pretty much their whole middle section.

They only jump and splash around if they are being social (like, greeting another pod) or if they are celebrating a kill. Neither of which we saw today, but it was so nice to enjoy the Pacific Northwest coastline for a few hours and bond with our aquatic cousins.

Orcas, like our buds the elephants, are matriarchal. Although the females are smaller, they lead the pod and make all the big decisions, so to speak. Their gestation period - this is for all you moms out there - is seventeen months. !! The baby feeds only on mother's milk for the first year of its life, and for the second year it mainly drinks milk but supplements a bit with food. Babies stay in the pod with mom until they are in their teens, or longer: boys, too. Only adult males really go off on their own.

Unlike elephants, though, killer whales only hang out in groups of three or four. That's the ideal size of a group to hunt the type of prey that they do, which consists of seals, porpoises, and even other whales.

Not a bad way to celebrate our anniversary. I think the rest of the country (world?) was watching the royal wedding, but we didn't because those kids just copied our big day anyways. :) We celebrated our own big day, our own big way. And we had a whale of a time! :)

Safari - Tanzania

The reason we chose to go to Tanzania was so that we could experience an extended safari. A few years ago when we went to South Africa and Zimbabwe, I would have said we went on safari, too. But now I would say that we went on game drives. There's a difference. A game drive is just that - driving around and looking for game. (Our driver in Tanzania, Nas, said, "Know why they call it a game drive? Because it's a game whether or not the animals will show up. Maybe they will play, maybe they will not.")

They played.

This was a safari. It was us and our driver and the truck for ten days, driving hundreds of miles in Tanzania, going between and through various national parks. We basically lived in that truck.

We drove with the roof up and stood a lot of the time (even while Nas was driving). That was the beauty of having the truck all to ourselves.

We drove through the following parks: Tarangire, Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro Crater, and the Serengeti (south, central, north). As you can see from the pics below, the landscape varied quite a bit. The crater and lake were more jungle-like and tropical in parts, but the vast majority of the landscape was dry prairie. We were there in their dry season (winter), when the animals have had their babies (kill me now) and are migrating.

Here are some of the highlights. I know not all of our devoted 2.5 followers are as into animals as we are, so I'll keep this fairly brief. :)

The elusive leopard! We saw three different sightings - an unexpected delight.

A Nile Crocodile, his back still wet from the river.

Our first time seeing a cheetah in the wild! In South Africa, we saw several at an animal rescue organization.

All the pics were taken from the truck, and the trucks must stay on designated roads (unlike in other African countries where they can go off-road in private areas, like we did in South Africa).

In future posts, I'll include additional animals that were new to us as well as some of the best shots of more familiar ones. Suffice it to say that we saw so many animals that we eventually just stopped taking pictures. The scope was unbelievable: groups of giraffes; zebras and wildebeests and cape buffalo as far as the eye could see; more baby elephants than you could shake a stick at; birds of all kinds. Hundreds and hundreds. We even stopped taking pictures of the lions!

This, friends, is why we went. It was so amazing. The pictures are great but at the same time they don't really do justice to Tanzania. More to come!

P.S. The King Soopers coupon offer is still on the table. Just a couple of quick syllabi and also some pre-emptive reading for a History of the Novel class. Lemme know.

Staycation

Hello, loves. I survived writing my last papers of the semester and am currently putting off grading student finals. They are piling up in my inbox, supposedly. I don't know because I'm dutifully ignoring my email.

G's parents are out here for a few days and we've been eating our way through the greater Denver area.

Have you heard of Berkshire? It's been featured on the Food Channel; all the dishes are designed around pork, so, you know, we hoofed it right over there. (<-- see what I did there?)

This is, hands down, the best Bloody Mary I've had in Denver. They make their own bacon-infused and pepperoncini-infused vodkas. I usually ask for mine to be super spicy and don't have any great expectations, but DANG. They do it right.

Here's a pic for scale. Yes, it was as big as my face. I drank every last drop, people.

We ordered freshly-made pork skins, chili-lime flavored. They went perfectly with the drinks!

G's dad ordered this: it's a pork burger, topped with pork belly, bacon, their own spicy cheese sauce, and pork skins. We dubbed it The Widow Maker.

Here's a pic of the inside:

Check out some of the highlights from the menu. I'm so NOT kidding when I say that all the dishes are designed around pork.

Even dessert! This is the spiced toffee bread pudding ... with bacon, of course.

That meal was a reckoning, let me tell you. All the dishes were perfectly flavored and balanced, though, and the service was great. Believe it or not, I don't eat a ton of meat, so this meal was overkill (<--- see what I did there?) but I would (WILL) go back just for the Bloody Mary's! And for the occasional bacon craving, let's be honest.

Other than eating, we've been exploring Rocky Mountain National Park. Here are a few highlights from yesterday:

Trail Ridge Pass (the road that connects the two sides of the park) is still closed due to snow, but we managed to see some moose and elk.

OK, I should put down the computer before I'm tempted to check my email and start working. More staycation pics coming soon!