Weekending + last week

Cypress knees protruding from Lake Maitland.

Snowy egret in tree, Orlando.

Beautiful shot of cormorants and clouds in Big Cypress Nat'l Park

I saw a total of 30 gators. Down 18 from last year but counting and driving at the same time can be tricky.

Ever wonder why grocery store tomatoes aren't that good? Because they are trucked like this and picked while green.

View of Miami from Key Biscayne

Poor rental car. Everyone was OK.

Breaking the huddle.

Beating BH.

My attempt to capture Julian's enthusiasm didn't quite work.

More snow on Sunday morning.

What a doozie. Last week I spent 4 days in Florida on a work trip. All my appointments went well, and my downtimes were nice too. It was chilly for Florida for this time of year, I was on the beach last Tuesday in my trench coat and scarf! I flew into Orlando (one appt.), drove to Naples (three appts.), drove to Miami (one appt.) then flew home on Friday morning from there. I arrived in Pittsburgh, got a rental car, and within ten minutes of concluding my trip, I rear ended an out-of-towner who had come to the university for cancer treatments. This was a bit of an emotional ending to a draining week.

After all the rental car mess was sorted, I had the Enterprise folks drop me off at my car at the high school (Julian and the team were already en route to Kiski via bus) and I got the assistant coach and headed back up to PA for the weekend's lacrosse tournament. Talk about intense!

We won our game on Friday night with ease and scouted the team we'd be playing in the morning. Neither of us were very confident about the morning's game and we slept fitfully in the hotel that night. We pulled off a very exciting victory against Bishop Hendricken in our morning game (thanks to Julian's all-night scheming) and played a very impressive game, despite our loss, in the championship round vs. Kiski. It was a very exciting weekend, but very intense and not at all restful. It sure is nice to be home, though.