Home Again

I've been all over the place these last few weeks. The trip up to Seattle was awesome. I drove up with Jaws and Balls the entire way up, and Jolie and Scout for portions of the trip. Oh, and Whiskey, Balls' puppy made the entire trip with us, too. I always think of San Francisco as being far north in CA, but the drive from there to the Oregon border is endless. It took us over 12 hours to make it to Scout's ranch, although some of that was thanks to our leisurely food stops and subsequent getting lost in the middle of nowhere in the dark near Bend.

Our day at the ranch was relaxing and awesome. It's about an hour from the nearest town, 45 minutes of which are on a dirt road. The cabin is right next to a cold river with good trout fishing. It's been in his family for a long, long time. We spent the day playing horseshoes, swimming, skeet shooting, fishing, and drinking beer on the porch. Needless to say, it was a good time.

Friday we drove up to Seattle, which should have been a short 3 hour drive, but instead turned into a day long ordeal. First, Scout's volvo completely lost its tire outside of Portland. Then, pulling into Seattle, we found out that Whiskey had Giardia and had to go to the Vet to get special medicine before she could be checked into her kennel for the weekend. So, after a long day, we finally pulled into the fields right before dark and Potlatch ensued. It was a great roadtrip, but I'm glad that I flew home and didn't have to make the ride down.

Following that, I had the Oettinger reunion in Thousand Oaks. 44 Oettingers from across the country flew in for an intense long weekend of huge amounts of eating and socializing. Then, the next weekend, I flew to Boston for a family reunion for my mom's side of the family.

I really enjoyed the change of scenery in New England, and the week was generally more relaxing than the Oettinger reunion because we weren't hosting people, there were fewer people and more time to enjoy things. On Saturday, my uncle got us tickets to go to Fenway and see the Rangers play. It was fun to see the scene around the ballpark, and even though our tickets kind of sucked, it was awesome to stand 2 feet behind Cliff Lee and watch him warm up before the game in the bullpen.

The next day, we drove up to Maine for a week in a lake house. Every day I went swimming, ran, played badminton, and played pool. We did lots of cooking every night and went on day trips to interesting local places. It was a really nice time, and all the activity was really good for my ankle. I ate lots of lobster and clams while we were there, and I was a little bit bummed to be back in the "real world" of LA when we got back Sunday night.

Now I'm just waiting on an appointment with my PT to see where my ankle is at. The time until I can play again is shrinking pretty quickly.