Milwaukee weekend.

Cutest drunk person EVER. He giggles hysterically when drunk. And his dad is a major alcohol pusher. I have no idea how much beer those two drank Friday night at the Rock Bottom… I had one martini against my will (“This ‘Chocolate Covered Banana’ sounds really great when you say it out loud, but I can’t order this… they forgot a hyphen in the menu!”).

Warn me that you'll steal my heart next time.

We survived! We got back super late last night (1:30 or so) and only stayed awake by blasting really terrible pop music that we would find odious and intolerable in any other state.

I only have one picture, which Bernd uploaded to the Internet on the fourth day of our trip. Here I am at Black Canyon of the Gunnison!



Awesome! That was, admittedly, not on a trail, but the caged viewing area was so boring and I only stepped on rocks - not plant life or soil - to reach my preferred vantage point. And there were no small children watching who could be influenced by my bad behavior, although Bernd plunged eagerly after me as soon as he lowered his camera...

Southwestern jaunt.

We're plotting an escape out west to White River National Forest, Grand Junction, the Arches, Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Mesa Verde, the San Juan National Forest and Black Canyon of the (on the? I can't remember) Gunnison. We leave Saturday.



I've been hungry for mountains all summer.

Chicago.

King-size bed.


You can totally see my bra.


Oh, the devastation! Er, we walked around on the set of Transformers 3.

Father's Day at Aztalan State Park.

It looked like a sea turtle!




Apparently, Aztalan has a problem with rogue mowers bringing their personal lawn care equipment on to state property and going nutty...




Bernd kept constructing these little headpieces for me and repurposing my hair clip to affix them to my head...


Then my dad tried to romantically tuck a daisy into my mom's hair. He couldn't get it to stay, so this is him just sitting it on top of her head...






Cool clouds all day.

Blue Mounds.

A good day. Bernd flew in at 1:00 in the morning and I woke up somehow one minute before his car pulled into the driveway, heard him unlocking the door and mounting the stairs, and then his fuzzy outline was in the room and he was shedding the dress shirt I had pressed so carefully for his Big Interview and crawling sleepily into bed.

This morning, we intended to go canoeing but found white caps on Lake Mendota, so we lounged on a hill overlooking the lake and pointed out cloud shapes and marveled at the bold windsurfers who braved the choppy water. This is what I always want to do.

Then we moved on to Blue Mound State Park, overcrowded with bikers participating in the Horribly Hill Hundreds.









I'm ready for whatever happens now on the Google front. If we stay, we stay. If we go, it's bound to be a great adventure.

Twin Cities.

We raced up to the Twin Cities for Memorial Day weekend (and crawled home today past too many accidents on I-94 and too many tired families outbound from Wisconsin Dells). We spent most of the day Saturday biking through downtown Minneapolis–20 miles or more in all, which felt farther in the heat—and swimming in Lake Calhoun. In the evening, we showered and tossed on some nicer togs to go see the Minnesota Orchestra perform Dvorak’s Serenade in D minor for wind instruments (lovely but a little sedate for my tastes) and Bela Bartok’s Concerto No. 2 for Violin and Orchestra, which Bernd loathed and I absolutely loved for its chaotic energy. We didn’t stay for Stravinsky’s Petrushka on Bernd’s insistence. I like Stravinsky, myself. Oh well!

On Sunday, we lazed in the morning and then met up with friends for coffee before hitting up the Minnesota Science Museum, which was all kinds of fun.










Scary stuff.


Alligator chomp!