Ottawa pictures.

Ottawa River and bridge, Parliament, Rideau Canal locks, and at Ryan's apartment. Camera goofed on the date so I did a great job of editing.

Carbondale Illinois

So Jason and I had a quick jaunt to Carbondale Illinois. Jason spent Friday in a 10 hour interview (not exaggerating), and I spent the day driving around seeing sights. I think I got the better end of the deal, however, I did get to meet some of the people he met with and they were just sweethearts! Jason loves being adored, so I'm sure not ALL of the 10 hours was bad. :) We were even invited to dinner with a couple of people and to a play on campus!

We flew into St. Louis, MO and drove about 2 hours southeast to Carbondale, IL, the home of the Southern Illinois University Carbondale Salukis! Not much there, definately a college town and will be booming with excitement in another couple months when the majority of the students come back into town. But it was pretty, lots of lakes and thick trees. Here are a few pictures of the trip. While I was driving to Giant City State Park, I came across this park that a family had made in memorial to their son. It was amazing and I could have stayed there for hours! Sydney and dad would have loved it too! So a lot of my pictures happened to be of it, haha! Enjoy! Oh, and keep in mind I was driving and taking pictures, not a great combination, so they aren't the greatest of pictures!

ST. LOUIS ARCH "GATEWAY TO THE WEST"

CROSSING THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER INTO ILLINOIS



STOPPED FOR DINNER AT LONE STAR, IT WAS YUMMY!



ALL DRESSED UP FOR HIS INTERVIEW!


COUNTRYSIDE IN ROUTE TO GIANT CITY STATE PARK:


GIANT CITY STATE PARK, WELL, SOME OF IT, OKAY, JUST THE PART OUTSIDE OF THE VISITOR'S CENTER


THAT'S THE CAR WE WERE DRIVING, PARKED OUTSIDE THE GIANT CITY STATE PARK VISITOR CENTER
THE COOL PARK:





CRAB ORCHARD LAKE, IT'S REALLY BIG

GOSH, I ONLY HAVE ONE PICTURE OF CAMPUS AND IT'S NOT EVEN THE WELLNESS CENTER! THIS IS ONE OF THE DORMS ON PART OF CAMPUS LAKE.

More bike stuff...

Does it ever end? No, it doesn't. :)

Bike Race... the saga continues

The other night, I was talking to a pro DH racer friend of mine, who looked at the race photo I have up on Facebook and said, "Wait -- did you really run those tires in the race? Those are downhill tires! Look at those knobs. You probably had twice the rolling resistance of everyone else." He was absolutely sure that had I been running other tires, I would have placed at least one better. Second place, easy.

Then, at spin last night, I was talking to my friend Jackie, who watched the race (above). She said that the chick who took first in my division went the wrong way and skipped the big monster climb on the first lap. (I'm sure it was an accident -- there were no course marshalls where you turn up the hill, and the "regular loop" skips that hill.) So that eliminates the first-place girl...

It's almost like I won! Hahaha...

There's another race this weekend in Napa -- the Skyline Dirt Classic -- but I can't go, because I'm getting a fabulous new haircut. AFTER I do a little tire-shopping, that is.

Ottawa in May

Ottawa is rather cold and brown for most of the year. Nonetheless, for a few months of the year, it gets warm and green and almost tricks one into believing that it is a wonderful place full of secrets and awe. Starting in May, these are the kinds of things you see if you look around in the area:

First off, pines and such near Ryan's apartment.

Baby pine tree:

Woodpecker:

Pink Trees:

View of the Ottawa Valley as seen from the Gatineau Hills:

View of Ryan as seen from the same lookout point:

Pink Lake:

Memorial Day Weekend

This past weekend we enjoyed the company of family. Jason's mom was in town and on Saturday we took them on a hike to Doughnut Falls, which Sydney thinks is a hilarious name! It was a nice little hike up Big Cottonwood Canyon. On Monday we took mom and dad up the same canyon looking for a different hike, a nice jaunt to Hidden Falls, but the river was high and we missed the trail so we started up a different one, much different difficulty level than Hidden Falls, but Sydney did great and mom only nearly fell off the cliff once. It was fun! Sydney found the largest lady bug I've ever seen, picked it up and was ready to bring it home. When I told her that it would be better to leave it there where she'd have food and where it was her home, Sydney got very sad. She loves all those little bugs and wants them all to live with her as her pet. I told her we'd get a jar and collect bugs when we got home. I'll have to post pictures later since they are still on Jason's camera and he has it in San Fransico right now.


A fun thing that happened to us over the weekend as well, was bird hatchlings! We have some chickadees in the birdhouses that replaced their tree we had to remove so that was exciting. And then we had a visit from some robin twins. One of them knocked on the door so we could come look. They sat in the rose bushes on the front porch and their dad came and fed them worms. It was so cute! I ran out and took a bunch of pictures and at one point the one baby got nervous and tried to fly. He flew right onto Jason behind! It was hilarious! Here are a few of the pictures I took of the robins, and one of one of the bird houses we have with a pretty clematis.

It's time to put on make-up...