Sorry it's been so long...

since I posted last, but it has simply just been too hot! I don't think we have had one significant accomplishment this whole month! It has been steamy pretty much the whole month. In fact, today, the last day of September, our thermometer read 105 degrees. The largest thing we finished this month was our bathroom. I dare say, it turned out pretty nice.


This last weekend, I traveled up to Oakland via good old Southwest Airlines, which still gives you peanuts! At the airport, I took Air BART to the BART station and took BART to downtown Oakland. I found my hotel, checked in, and then found some pizza for supper. All this was quite an experience, as you may imagine, at this time of night (my flight got in at 7:30 pm). I slept pretty poorly, but got up early at 6AM, grabbed a Starbucks breakfast (HELLO Pumpkin Spice Latte!) and registered for my course at the Marriott across the street from my hotel. The class was on vertigo and cervicogenic dizziness. The instructor is on faculty at USC and was a very good teacher. So, a very good course and definitely will be using the skills back at home. After the class, I reversed my route back to the airport, except one tiny problem-the Oakland Raiders. You see, the BART station that I get off to take the bus to the airport is one and the same as the station people use to access the Oakland Raider's game at the Collesium. AND-since the Oakland Raiders who used to be the LA Raiders have a fairly close proximity to LA-guess who was all in line to get to the airport? So, after a VERY rowdy plane ride home, I was very happy to get to bed that night. You wouldn't know that we're having economic difficulties in this country if you account for the at least 6 planeloads of Raiders fans from the LA area at the game. Pretty crazy!
Now, we are hopefully going to be getting some cooler air. Someone told me Saturday is to bring a high of 67 degrees. I won't believe it until I see it! I promise to be a better blogger in October!

Photos

I thought I would post some of our photos from our beautiful weekend in the Sierras over Labor Day weekend.
We drove up on Saturday morning and met Nick's parents in Bishop, California. We got an early start on Sunday morning and drove up to Bodie State Park, which is an actual ghost town. This is not the type that is commercialized (hence the State Park Status); it truly is a ghost town. Unfortunately, it was super windy on Sunday, so we battled with that and dust, but it was very cool thanks to the high elevation.




We then made our way back down a bit to Mono Lake, a saltwater lake. The photos are deceiving, but we couldn't see much due to the spray and mist from the lake thanks to the wind.


We then headed to Mammoth Country and made the June Lake loop (gorgeous) and the Mammoth Lakes loop. In the town of Mammoth Lakes, we jumped a bus (mandatory) to take us to Devil's Pile National Monument. The trip to the monument was gorgeous and it was beautiful once we got there. It truly was one of the most beautiful places I have seen in California, and that's saying a lot. We definitely will be returning there to do some camping and hiking at some point. This is a portion that used to a part of Yosemite (it is on the border of the park) and it is an absolute "must see."





Sunday, we stopped at Eric Schatt's German bakery and loaded up on yummy bread, baked goods and gelato (yes, at 9am), we headed toward home, but stopped in Lone Pine to take the Mt. Whitney Portal (Mt. Whitney is the tallest peak in the lower 48). This really was beautiful and we hope to return there sometime (maybe not to go to the top, but at least stay up there). I did feel the altitude and took a while to get used to it. I can see if you are going to climb to the top, why you would want to acclimate first.





Since that beautiful weekend, we have been recovering. We (Nick) grouted the bathroom this past weekend, which was very easy and now looks very nice. Now we have to do some touch up painting, install baseboards and reset the toilet. I can't wait until it's done!