Over the break we bought Felix a chintzy leash and decided to give him his first taste of the great outdoors. It went relatively well, but he’s definitely been raised to enjoy the indoor life. I’m just glad he finally got to romp around in grass and sniff tree bark; two experiences we’re incapable of supplying him with in our meager coastal apartment.

Good grief! I’ve been editing and deleting and organizing all the photos from my 10 day vacation all night, and yet my Flickr is only up to day three of the trip! This may take longer than I thought…

Here’s a bit of what I’ve managed to get together so far:

Driving! It’s about a 3 hour drive from Arcata to Redding if you straight shoot it. We usually make a necessary pit stop in Weaverville to grab snacks at Tops.

When we finally got home it was pretty quiet. Sue and Charlie were still in Mexico, so we hung out with Larry for the weekend, played games and cooked a lot of stir fry dinners.

Tom was a jerk the entire 10 days. I wouldn’t expect anything less from him!

Ed was looking healthier than I’ve ever seen him! He usually is very stressed out and missing patches of fur on his hind legs (for this, we used to nickname him ‘Chaps’).

Being the first trip home since I purchased my 50mm lens, I had to photograph everything in sight, of course!

This is one of my favorite walking paths, simply because it’s so utterly engulfed in frail looking trees, flowers and of course, the staple redwoods.

A friend of mine is throwing a dinner party this evening, so I decided to take the time to get creative with my midday snack in lieu of preparing a delicious meal later tonight!

The idea is pretty simple: take an apple and slice it into 1/2-1″ thick pieces. Cut out the hard star-shaped centers, slather a minimal amount of choice nut butter onto each piece (I enjoy the MaraNatha line), then stack it back up!

Pretty impractical for a quick snack, but definitely a fun once in a while treat.

I got home last night from the weekend retreat at Rigdzin Ling. I don’t know what to say, exactly. It was definitely amazing! Aside from being out of town, I didn’t expect it to be much different than the other workshops I attended this semester, but oh how wrong I was! I’ve learned so much and actually feel like I came home with a different mind.

One of the best parts of the weekend was getting to see a living example of a Buddhist; it’s a lot different than just reading a book. It was amazing to meet and talk with people who have dedicated their lives to being there– people who are otherwise every day human beings. They were very authentic without even a whiff of the sanctimonious air that’s so common in such contexts. A lot of misconceptions I’ve had about Buddhism were cleared up, too. I look forward to going back next year!

One of the worst parts of the weekend was me barfing on the way home! I had to ask the car full of semi-strangers if we could pull over so I could release my entire lunch onto the side of the 299. Geez, you’d think I’d have travelled on that road enough to be immune to the twists and turns!

Naturally, I spent most of the breaks inbetween sessions shooting away with my camera. Rigdzin Ling is in the mountains of Northern California (Junction City to be specific), which isn’t too far from my hometown, so I knew it would be gorgeous. Freezing, but gorgeous!
There are some more photos below, or you can see them all (+/- 35) in a small set on my flickr.

Smoke offering ceremony.

Roof of the Guru Rinpoche statue.

Down the hall from my sleeping quarters.

A resident dog that looks like a deer.