It was super quiet at work for the first half of the week because a good chunk of the office, including Nora, Cheryl and Mary, was in San Francisco at a conference. Good thing I had my cubie mates to keep me company.
On Tuesday night I went to another lecture in my continued quest to take advantage of the free culture on campus. This was a photographer who had an exhibition of pics taken at the Salton Sea so I was particularly interested. It was less fun than I'd hoped, with lots of artist talk on his oeuvre and motivation. I still bought the $48 book of the exhibition for some reason. Oh well.
Wednesday night was going to be our first freeze but there were no more in the future forecast so I spent some time bringing in the most fragile plants (mostly impatiens) and covering my tomatoes. I'm glad I did because the uncovered things did freeze. Since it was still below freezing when I left for my podiatrist appointment on Thursday, they stayed inside or covered until I got home Thursday night. Thursday was also Josh's last day so we went out to Dempsey's for lunch. Bye bye! (is my lack of sadness showing?)
I left for work Friday with the car packed for my weekend at Connie's. I would normally have taken the whole day off but Paul Wesselman from The Ripples Project was doing a professional development event from noon-2:00 so I was staying in town for that. As usual, it was a totally invigorating event so I left on a high to pick Rachele up for our long drive. We were taking the scenic route, which was more direct but would go through some small towns on 2 lane roads. We'd be arriving after dark but would gain an hour when we switched to mountain time so planned to arrive ~11:00.
All was going according to plan until I crested a hill north of Thedford (absolutely the middle of nowhere) and saw a cop at the bottom, who of course pulled me over. My fate was sealed when he asked why I was speeding and I said, "a new car and a wide open road!" Then to add another layer of crap (as if my snark wasn't enough), I didn't have the paperwork to prove I owned the car. We were on the side of the road for 30 minutes and I left with a $124 ticket for speeding and a fix it ticket for not having the paperwork. At least the rest of the ride was uneventful. We hugged Connie hello and all went to bed. Connie would be leaving for the mine before we were up the next morning.
Since I mine tour was at 1:30, Rachele and I were planning to leave early and grab some lunch on the way. Until the phone rang. Connie had messed up and we needed to be at the mine at 11:30 for orientation so we threw on clothes and headed there. After a safety film, we donned PPE (personal protective equipment), which in this case was a full jumpsuit (not attractive), hard hat and googles. After a 15 minute ride down in the miner's cage, we were in the underground research facility. Other than seeing rock on some walls, we could have been in any lab. They showed us lots of cool experiments then we took a little train over to the other mine shaft, which was more rustic. The grad student who talked to us over there was so enthusiastic that he made the tour. My knee was singing with tension by the time we were done and the ride up in the cage was killer painful but I made it and I was so glad to have seen it all.
Needless to say, we were all starving so we went home via Chubby Chipmunk for truffles and Dough Trader - Spearfish's fabulous sour dough pizza place for a yummy dinner. Sated, we headed back to Connie's for a night of movies and chocolate. Nice.
We'd made no plans beyond the mine tour so had a leisurely morning on Sunday and headed up the canyon late morning for a late breakfast at Cheyenne Crossing. From there we went to the visitors' center in Lead (Rachele had never been) and then headed back to Spearfish thinking we'd hit the shops on Main Street. Well, it must be an out of season thing because all the shops were closed. It didn't end up mattering because the sun went in while we were getting ice cream and with the wind it was just too cold to be outside. With bellies full of ice cream, we went back to Connie's for, you guessed it, more movies. I made carbonara with shredded Brussels sprouts for dinner and we had a lovely and cozy time at home. It's always good to hang with Connie and it was good to not overdo since we'd have a long drive back on Monday. Plus I got to catch up on all the Marvel movies I'd missed. : )
On Tuesday night I went to another lecture in my continued quest to take advantage of the free culture on campus. This was a photographer who had an exhibition of pics taken at the Salton Sea so I was particularly interested. It was less fun than I'd hoped, with lots of artist talk on his oeuvre and motivation. I still bought the $48 book of the exhibition for some reason. Oh well.
Wednesday night was going to be our first freeze but there were no more in the future forecast so I spent some time bringing in the most fragile plants (mostly impatiens) and covering my tomatoes. I'm glad I did because the uncovered things did freeze. Since it was still below freezing when I left for my podiatrist appointment on Thursday, they stayed inside or covered until I got home Thursday night. Thursday was also Josh's last day so we went out to Dempsey's for lunch. Bye bye! (is my lack of sadness showing?)
I left for work Friday with the car packed for my weekend at Connie's. I would normally have taken the whole day off but Paul Wesselman from The Ripples Project was doing a professional development event from noon-2:00 so I was staying in town for that. As usual, it was a totally invigorating event so I left on a high to pick Rachele up for our long drive. We were taking the scenic route, which was more direct but would go through some small towns on 2 lane roads. We'd be arriving after dark but would gain an hour when we switched to mountain time so planned to arrive ~11:00.
All was going according to plan until I crested a hill north of Thedford (absolutely the middle of nowhere) and saw a cop at the bottom, who of course pulled me over. My fate was sealed when he asked why I was speeding and I said, "a new car and a wide open road!" Then to add another layer of crap (as if my snark wasn't enough), I didn't have the paperwork to prove I owned the car. We were on the side of the road for 30 minutes and I left with a $124 ticket for speeding and a fix it ticket for not having the paperwork. At least the rest of the ride was uneventful. We hugged Connie hello and all went to bed. Connie would be leaving for the mine before we were up the next morning.
Since I mine tour was at 1:30, Rachele and I were planning to leave early and grab some lunch on the way. Until the phone rang. Connie had messed up and we needed to be at the mine at 11:30 for orientation so we threw on clothes and headed there. After a safety film, we donned PPE (personal protective equipment), which in this case was a full jumpsuit (not attractive), hard hat and googles. After a 15 minute ride down in the miner's cage, we were in the underground research facility. Other than seeing rock on some walls, we could have been in any lab. They showed us lots of cool experiments then we took a little train over to the other mine shaft, which was more rustic. The grad student who talked to us over there was so enthusiastic that he made the tour. My knee was singing with tension by the time we were done and the ride up in the cage was killer painful but I made it and I was so glad to have seen it all.
Needless to say, we were all starving so we went home via Chubby Chipmunk for truffles and Dough Trader - Spearfish's fabulous sour dough pizza place for a yummy dinner. Sated, we headed back to Connie's for a night of movies and chocolate. Nice.
We'd made no plans beyond the mine tour so had a leisurely morning on Sunday and headed up the canyon late morning for a late breakfast at Cheyenne Crossing. From there we went to the visitors' center in Lead (Rachele had never been) and then headed back to Spearfish thinking we'd hit the shops on Main Street. Well, it must be an out of season thing because all the shops were closed. It didn't end up mattering because the sun went in while we were getting ice cream and with the wind it was just too cold to be outside. With bellies full of ice cream, we went back to Connie's for, you guessed it, more movies. I made carbonara with shredded Brussels sprouts for dinner and we had a lovely and cozy time at home. It's always good to hang with Connie and it was good to not overdo since we'd have a long drive back on Monday. Plus I got to catch up on all the Marvel movies I'd missed. : )
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