It was a very busy week upon our return, but we enjoyed our first weekend at home by working on our garden. Randal built some great raised beds and our plants mainly survived while we were gone. The weeds have since come on strong and some birds ate all our lettuce, but I'm still proud. We're picking our snow peas and enjoying them and I'm able to season my pasta sauce with home grown herbs.
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| One of our raised beds. |
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| Randal cuts down some branches, trying to get some extra sunlight to our tomatoes. |
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| The backyard garden. We have eaten 6 strawberries from our plants and lost several tomato plants to weeds and some alley hunters. |
Randal finished teaching his Green Building course at Oregon Tech and was a huge success. His students loved him and he gave them all his favorite books at the end of the class. (And thus had to repurchase all of his favorite books. Teaching is expensive!) I am so proud of him for stepping out of his comfort zone and kicking butt as a professor. We all knew he would though.
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| Room 294! That's my husband! |
Joan, Randal's mom, soon came to visit from Tucson. She looks amazing, having lost 52 lbs since our wedding. She was able to hike and bicycle and loved eating all of our vegetables and fruits. The only downside was that I couldn't make my normal dessert-and-unhealthy-food-for-company that I normally do! I had to work much of the time that she was there, but she and Randal had a great time bopping around Klamath Falls and exploring some of our fabulous sites. They went to Lava Beds National Monument, the Klamath County Museum, worked on the building, shaved Bogey, and enjoyed several hikes around the area together.
During the weekend, we all took off to visit Crater Lake, which of course, was incredibly gorgeous. We jumped around in the snow and did a couple of hikes that I had never done before. One took us down to the lake. The boat to Wizard Island wasn't open, but we got to dip our hands in the water and marvel at the blue, blue water. What a beautiful lake. 
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| That's Klamath Falls in the distance! |
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| My love and the lake. |
Joan left last Saturday and headed back to Oro Valley. But, Randal and I didn't stop there! We wanted to take advantage of Crater Lake again. They finally cleared all of the roads from snow, but for the first weekend, 20 miles of the rim road were closed to cars and open only to pedestrians and cyclists. Not knowing what we were getting into, we headed up with Adam and Lindsey for a 33-mile ride that included 3500 feet of ascent. And a lot of descent. Basically, it was up and down and no flat. But, it was just gorgeous and the weather was perfect. And surprisingly, uncrowded! It was remarkable to have so much of the park to ourselves. So, we cycled slowly up the hills and everyone else raced down them. (I am a scaredy-cat and do not like to go that fast down the hills; my speed maxed out at 32mph and Adam maxed out at 45mph or something obscene like that.)
It was incredibly beautiful. And hard. And we were so glad that we did it.
Work has been busy this week. LinkedIn notified me that I have had my current job for a year. The hospital officially closed on a building for us and we are projected to open in October or November. While this year at work has looked differently than I had anticipated, I have learned a tremendous amount. (And continue to do so... I have spent the morning trying to figure out Trail Use Agreements and legal Land Use/Easement paperwork.) I look forward to seeing patients and having a routine schedule, but I am so grateful for this time to deepen my knowledge, allow us to network within the community, and begin built environment advocacy and interventions.
Plus, I get to work in my pajamas a lot more than I had thought I could.
So, here's to one year as citizens of Klamath! Happy Anniversary to us!
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