Weather fixation

Yup.  I'm totally fixated on the weather these days.  It's not as hot as it had been, although we did break a record by having 70 days of 100 degrees or more this year . . . so far.  I'm not totally convinced that the weather is through with its super-heat yet, but the last few days have been nice, comfortable mid-80s to mid-90s.  Which tells you how hot it's been . . . that I think mid-90s is comfortable.  I mowed my back yard and didn't even break a sweat hardly.

Thought I'd throw in a picture of my twin peach trees.  You'd never know they were once the same size. 

So the temperature has been 'decent', but we're still severely dry.  It actually rained Friday evening.  I was standing in my doorway, literally trying to will it to rain before it started.  Me, the sun-lover, trying to will rain.  It's just not normal.  It did rain though.  It was only a few hours of a pretty soft rain at my place, but I was just so happy to see moisture.  Of course, I'm still watering today since Sunday is one of my watering days.  It'll take more than that little bit of moisture to counter the effects of our long drought.

So see?  Fixated on the weather.

I survived my first work week back from vacation.  It wasn't too bad since I had cleaned out all those emails.  I'm actually mostly caught up, which is kind of amazing.  Of course, I partly owe that to the fact that the new instruments didn't get installed while people argued over who pays to run the water and power for them.  So they're still sitting waiting on installation, and I have only a few validation studies waiting for me to reveiw and sign.  Those came from the new tabletop instrument that didn't require any rerouting of systems.  Other things seem to be moving along nicely.

I interviewed medical school applicants yesterday.  This is about the fourth year I've volunteered to interview the applicants.  I enjoy it, but I only volunteered for four weekends this year since I'm fairly busy with other stuff.  I have another meeting in Washington DC at the end of the month . . . coming up fast come to think of it.  I just had a meeting in DC just over a week ago, so DC twice this month.  Keeps me out of trouble I guess.

I've been sorting through vacation trips and pictures and trying to figure out what I did what years.  I know the first long vacation trip I took was in 1993, and that was a 17 day, 7100 mile jaunt around the western US by myself with my camping gear in my car.  Then I went back to the Utah parks  (Zion Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Capital Reef, Arches) for the next five years (1994 through 1998), although I didn't do all four parks every year.  In 1999, my sister Monica and I went and we went to all four parks.  In 2000 and 2001 I didn't take the long vacation, as far as I can remeber.  In 2002 I went by myself.  In 2003 and 2004 Yasmeen started going with me.  2005 was by myself.  2006 was with Yasmeen.  2007 was Monica, Yasmeen and I and that was a fun trip!  They were all pretty fun, but that one especially was.  Yasmeen went with me in 2008, and Monica has gone now in 2009, 2010 and 2011.  So although I used to go alone all the time, after Monica went with me in 1999, I've only gone alone twice.   They've all been pretty great trips, each memorable for different things.  One of these days I'll have to transcribe all my hand-written journals from those various trips into the computer, and maybe intersperse them with the pictures from the trips.  Someday when I'm bored for something to do.

Anyway I guess that's about it for now. 

Almost time to work

Yes, the summer has totally gotten away from me. And vacation has totally gotten away from me. Today is my last day of vacation, and tomorrow I return to work after three weeks off. It's going to be hard to go back, but at least this week I remoted in and cleaned out 700+ emails. Tomorrow shouldn't be too horrific.

Vacation has been wonderful. Monica and I did the Utah parks again, and even though it was a shorter trip than we usually take out there, for various reasons, it was great. We hiked Angel's Landing again, of course. The picture here is the trail near the top of the hike. We also did a hike in Bryce. Those were our only two hikes though. We skipped Capital Reef completely this year, and opted to shop in Moab rather than hike in Arches. Easier on the body; harder of the credit cards.

We did things a little differently this year in a couple of ways. Usually we take the roads up through the panhandle after Amarillo, and then take roads across northern New Mexico. It's an incredibly scenic drive . . . once you get past Raton. Nothing "incredibly scenic" about most of the Texas panhandle nor eastern New Mexico. Instead of taking that route though, this year we took I-40 straight west from Amarillo to Albuquerque and then headed northwest to Farmington. It wasn't an especially scenic drive but it was 2 to 3 hours shorter!! I really liked that! Yes, I know that interstate is going to get you places faster than back roads, but I've almost always opted for back roads to see the scenery. However, given that I've made that drive almost every year since 1993, I figured I could skip seeing it this year. And I did really like hitting Farmington in daylight and not exhausted from 15-ish hours of driving.

Another different thing we did was after leaving Moab we drove straight to Denver to visit with my nephew, niece and great-nieces. That drive was only about 5 1/2-ish hours, less than it usually takes us to get to my sister's place. Interstate again.

The weather was fairly warm this year out there. That's probably not surprising, given the national weather, and it was cooler than Dallas, which wouldn't have been difficult. But Zion hit 103 the second day we were there. Bryce was nice though. Not too cool for me, for a change. We got thunderstorms both nights we were in Bryce, which didn't make Monica very happy, as she has a pretty good lightning phobia. The days were picture perfect though, so I have to say I'm glad the rain and storms came at night.

Both hikes were great. We saw the peregrines and condors both at Angel's, but didn't get near enough either of them for pictures this year. This little guy hanging onto my boot and his friends were about all we got close enough to take pictures of. In Bryce, we did the loop section of the trail in the opposite direction that we usually hike it, and I think I like it better that way. We missed sharing the trail with the horses that way. Picture below is from the Bryce hike.

Another different thing we noticed was that there seemed to be less people this year, in many of the places we went and on the roads. We wondered if it was because we started a week later than usual. Perhaps more kids were back in school and we were past the peak season.

In general I would say that it was another wonderful Utah vacation, with a finishing touch of getting to spend time with my Denver grand-nieces.

Today I'm doing stuff around the house in preparation for going back to work tomorrow. Plus I'm watering my lawn. The county has restricted water usage because of the continuing drought. The temps finally broke and have been lovely (80s), although we're supposed to get three days of 100s again this week. But we've had no rain. Not a drop since we had a brief morning rain on Aug 14th. And I think that was the only rain in the metroplex for the last 60+ days. So I can currently water my lawn on Thursdays and Sundays before 10:00 am and after 6:00 pm. That will help my water bill, but my lawn is going to look worse than it does. Can't be helped. I may not be able to keep it alive if we don't get rain, let along looking good.

The dogwoods succumbed to the heat and drought this year, and the holly might have also during the time I was away. I'll give it some time to come back since it's managed a previous comeback. The peach tree-lets look good still. Well, the big one looks good, the tiny one is surviving still.

That's it for now.