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Yeesh--the past few weeks have just been car-RAZY! This is the first day I've awakened in my own bed AND not had to rush around to leave again!

First, I tagged along with the Rose City Steampunk Film Festival's traveling road show, which started in Seattle and went all the way down to San Diego! I did manage to make a few good business connections along the way, but primarily it was a chance to get away from home for a bit without entirely cutting ties--I took some of my art with me so I could keep sending out orders from my Etsy shop, and made some things along the way, too. Plus I was helping the steampunks keep the show going, and ended up being the ticket taker more than once.

But it wasn't all work! I went swimming in the ocean for the first time ever! I grew up in the Midwest, and my family wasn't one of those that went boating for fun, so other than swimming in chlorine-laced pool water, I wasn't much of a water baby, though I took basic swimming lessons. I was a little worried about the waves pulling me under as I tried pushing through the breakers to get to swimmable water, but I did just fine, and for once I found I could actually float thanks to the sea water! (I have very little body fat, and normally the only thing keeping me above water is the air in my lung--my legs usually sink like lead weights since they're all muscle.)

And I got to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.We spent four hours there, and STILL it wasn't enough. I got to pet bat rays, and watch shore birds, and look at a whale skeleton, and see sea otters feeding, and take pictures of jellyfish and seahorses, etc., etc. Definitely want to go back next time I'm down that way.

We got back a week ago, and then my partner and I had to get right back on the road for All's Faire up in Washington. It was a smaller faire, and not one of the multi-weekend things (which I'm generally not a fan of vending at since I need breaks, folks!) but it was a LOT of fun, I made back my booth fees and other expenses, and I'm very  excited to keep working with these folks. 

I will say that I don't quite understand extroversion, which seems to be very popular among modern "pirates". Lots of yelling, lots of shooting black powder cannons (in a controlled environment) for the sake of making things go BOOM!, and lots of loud partying. But they were having a hell of a time, and I enjoyed watching them from my little introvert shell (even if the black powder did make my poor ears hurt). 

And now it's back to Portland for the time being. There's the Sherwood Fantasy Faire that I'll be vending at this weekend, but that's just in a suburb of Portland, so we can come back here to sleep at night. I'll happily drive a dozen miles instead of a thousand!

And now that it's warmed up, I can go hit up some of my favorite trails around Mt. Hood. I've enjoyed seeing the ocean, and the beaches, and coastal forests, and scrubby deserts. But the Pacific Northwest is home, and especially Hood and the Gorge. I need to reconnect with my place again :)