How Lovely

It's the end of another long weekend. Us girls made record time packing up this morning, managing to be out of the campground by 8:30 am! We were all looking forward to having a day to relax at the end of the weekend so our arrival back in Calgary at noon was super.

I have had an uber-lovely day today. I got home, downloaded my pictures onto my computer (there were 600 of them, needless to say I won't be posting them all on here) and had a shower. Then I went and bought some extremely expensive body wash... there's nothing quite like not showering for 4 days to inspire a girl to buy nice products. Then I indulged my relaxing-day food cravings and had Wicked Wedge pizza and an iced coffee from Thai Tai. They were oh-so-good.

The gardening has been coming along nicely, but I ran out of potting soil again the other day so I had to make yet another trip to the Home Depot to pick some up. Then I went to the Co-Op on 11th Ave, where I proceeded to say "wow" over and over again. I know, it's pretty sad that the highlight of my day was going to a grocery store, but it's so much nicer than the Safeway, and the produce actually looks fresh and appetizing. Anyway, I bought a bunch of healthy tasty food.

Actually, there were many highlights to my day today. Besides the grocery shopping, I also made a kick-ass dinner and went for a kick-ass run. For dinner I had scallops, fiddle heads and baby carrots. A real Maritime meal, the scallops reminded me of my mom's fish-loving side of the family, and the fiddle heads very much reminded me of my grandfather on dad's side. He always had fiddle heads in the freezer for when I came to visit. They were my favorite thing, with butter, salt and vinegar on them. I even vividly remember his vinegar bottle. He also made the best carrots in the world, cooked on a wood-burning stove.

The run was super fantastic. Today was to be my first long run for my half-marathon training. It's only 7 km, but that's 2 km farther than I've run yet. I was feeling a little nervous about it because I hadn't been feeling great on my shorter runs last week, but I went out at 9:45 pm, the air smelled wonderful, the streets were quiet, and I had the paths to myself. It was really nice, and I finished the 7 km with lots of energy to spare. Yay! I think I'm going to make it!

Also! I finally made a decision about my quitting/travel plans for the summer. We were joking this weekend that my plans change every time you talk to me... I haven't even been absolutely sure I'd quit. I've been enjoying work a little more lately since I have my emotions and stress straightened out, and I haven't been that excited about Thailand... even to the point of being a little nervous about it. But, I realized that although I'm more happy with work, I'm not happy enough, so the quitting will definitely happen. As far as the travel goes, I've made a reservation to rent a car from July 24 to September 10th. I'm going to do a road trip down the west coast of the US, maybe down through the southern states, over to see my sister in North Carolina and then back to Calgary. I'm going to hit all the national parks I've been dying to see, Grand Teton, Yosemite, Arches, Joshua Tree, the Grand Canyon. I'll probably also hit some of the cities, like San Fran and LA, perhaps Vegas for a little treat. But the best part is, I'm going to take my time, do it on my own schedule. I'll probably camp for most of it, stay in hostels or B&B's in the cities. It's going to be so nice and relaxing! Yay!

Anyway, it's 11:45 pm and I'm still sitting on my porch. I need to go to bed so I can face reality again in the morning. I will have another post with the weekend's adventures soon, but I've uploaded some of my panoramics to my flickr page for now. Ta ta!