Now that we have hired a ridiculous amount of folks at work, hours have slimmed down a bit. I’m very okay with this, as it gives me time to actually sit back and enjoy the summer… Something I didn’t get to do at all last year thanks to summer school. I requested two days off this week– the fourth and the fifth– so I could enjoy a proper Independence Day, but it looks like I get to have the first through the third off, too! Five day weekend? Hell yes!

Lately I’ve been going on bike rides like mad! I never rode much in the two years we’ve lived here ’cause it’s so easy to get around on foot– unless you’re going to a neighboring city, there’s no real reason to ride a bike or drive a car. Unless, of course, that reason is the Bottoms!

“The Bottoms” refer to the rural part of Arcata between the city and the beach. It is the best reason to hop on a bike in the late afternoon, just when the sun starts to make its descent towards the horizon. The road is pretty rugged and not really made for skinny tires, but it zig zags between vast amounts of farm land. And where there’s farm land, there’s cows!

Oh, how I love cows. They are such gorgeous beings, though some of these looked a bit sad with warts or tumors on/around their faces. Poor guys… Er, gals! A few days previous to this particular ride I had gone on the same route with Chris and two of our future room mates, Kristina and Katie. We stopped a few times for photo shoots with the cows and they were not having it! This day, though, they couldn’t get enough! They kept following Chris and I up and down the fence, hamming it up for the camera. Too precious.

I also finally got to take photos of this spooky, seemingly abandoned house that I frequently pass by. I have no idea if anyone occupies it, but the prayer flags above the porch are really intriguing to me. Usually abandoned homes are so nondescript aside from their decrepitude. Maybe someone does live there? I’m too chicken to knock on the door!

If you keep riding past the scary house for a few more miles, Mad River Road will eventually take you to the beach. From my house, it’s just shy of an extremely satisfying 15 mile round trip– one that is littered with these fantastic signs warning you about entering/leaving the Tsunami Hazard Zone. I know tsunamis are serious business, but these signs crack me up.

Between bike rides and work, I’ve been doing a ton of vegan baking! The other day I made lemon bars, which disappeared in a matter of seconds. And today I finally got my hands on some wheat germ (you’d think this hippy town would be overflowing with wheat germ!) so tomorrow I will be tackling oatmeal and date cookies. I may throw some coconut in there, too, ’cause that’s how I roll!

I also finished designing my new web page so I can start selling prints / dino dude earrings and generally existing under the guise of an artist, rather than my usual outfit of lazy-bones gamer girl who loves to cook and update her Flickr.

My only problem is my moniker… Or lack thereof. I’m having trouble coming up with a good domain to register. Suggestions would be helpful! Unfortunately, my name is so painfully boring that any sort of formation of it is already taken a hundred times over. There goes my easy way out! Drats.