Back from vacation

Well, we made it back from our 3,000+ mile jaunt to Yosemite and back. We had a swell time, and we were able to see some of the most beautiful and amazing sites that the USA has to offer: Carlsbad Caverns, The Grand Canyon, Sequoia Nat'l Park, Yosemite, and the beach/marine preserve along San Simeon Bay of the California coast. We learned some eye-opening things...

1. Yosemite Park bears are highly intelligent and frequently break into cars in search of human food. Seeing that California elected Arnold Schwartzenegger as their governor, this is a pretty strong indication that the bears are evolving faster than the humans are, and thus we can probably expect these bears to start carjacking and taking hostages in the next 10 years or so.

2. Apparently it isn't just human adolescents who get tired and need to take lots of time off from school to catch up on their rest after long nights of perusing MySpace. California seals and sea otters also occasionally leave their friends after an extended period of swimming at sea to bask on an isolated beach and flip cool, wet sand on their backs with their flippers while they doze in the warm sun. We know this because we spent an afternoon with a seal last week. We got video to prove it, if you don't believe me.

3. Humans feeding wild animals (birds, bears & squirrels) seems fun, but can have dire consequences. These animals turn into filthy beggars, and will exhibit non-wild animal traits such as approaching humans for handouts, deceptively using distractions (birds flying in people's faces) to get at food (squirrels sneaking around back to dig into garbage), and even alcoholism and homelessness. We saw one squirrel weaving around, totally smashed, his fur all wrinkled and soiled, holding a tiny sign that read, "CANT FEED SKWIRRUL FAMLY, GOD BLESSS." It was totally pathetic.

4. I also decided to lay off Texas and Texans for awhile, as I've seen worse behavior on this trip (mostly in the vicinity of Los Angeles). Everything you heard about crazy drivers in LA, people waving guns out of the windows of minivans traveling at 95 mph while making deals with their agents on their cell phones, careening down mountain passes & guzzling energy drinks, is pretty much true. Also, the trucks drive so fast there that they have "Runaway truck lanes." If a truck loses control (or its brakes), there appear from time to time, when coming down a mountain, lanes available that branch off the main highway where a speeding, runaway 18-wheeler can go to slow down and eventually stop (in an enormous pile of dirt). I'm not making this up.

5. Finally, I learned that Texas is much hotter than California, and that if you are a female art teacher in Austin, it's not a good idea to pose topless for a friend, when said friend will eventually use your pictures in an enormous virtual art exhibit on the web. Austin seems pretty "weird" in some ways, but if Austin were an ice cream bar, it would look like this: Lots of "nuts" on a chocolate outer coating - but once you bite into it, the center is just plain vanilla - if you know what I mean. It's dull and white and very, very frigid. Also, there's the stick part, which could be said to represent the stick up our butts, that makes us panic whenever we are confronted with such horrible realities as this current one: that people are actually naked underneath all their fashionable clothing. Gasp!

Good to be back. Hope you all are doing well.