hiking pics

Just a few pics from this month (the rest I'll upload to FB). I need to finish a book that I realize (kind of horrifyingly) that I left out of a recent review article in which it really, really should have been mentioned. Ironically one of the authors is the former president of MP2's university and a longtime friend of my former dean. And while it has been somewhat harshly critiqued in some circles, it was (and remains) an important work. I've had the damned book on my shelf  for a few years (one of those "I really should read that even though its outside of my field books," so I'll go ahead and buy it and then one day [next life??!] I'll get to it.) Gah. Anyhow, this is reading, and then beach combing, day. Tomorrow is shot (two weeks back, I agreed to a long shopping day with retired, non-driving colleague a city over), and then Friday at the crack of dawn, I'm making the 5+hour drive home to hop on a plane for Vegas (work, not play).



Hiked the "bluff trail" here for the first time on Monday (so pleased with myself over the progress I made by holding my own feet to the conference paper fire that I had to reward myself with a break!) and encountered this bobcat at one of the overlooks. Freaked me out a bit, as I've seen those "beware of mountain lion" signs but never thought they'd be this close to the ocean/sheer cliffs.





This dates to the first hike TH and I took after he came back down with me earlier this month for a long weekend. We were headed to a new beach site where we collected a bazillion sand dollars. I forget the woman's name, but she was really fun to talk to--and I'd love to be her neighbor, because the houses along this stretch of beach were AMAZING.

And this hummingbird, well, it hangs out on the same exact branch of a tree near my reading porch--and I've been trying for weeks to snap its picture. Voila!