On Time Off and Traveling Shoes

The holy grail of opportunities for burnt out ladies came my way, and I took two weeks off of training aerial. How many times have we longed for such an opportunity?  No bills to pay, no gigs to prepare for, no classes to teach, no acts to create RIGHT NOW FOR JUST THIS ONE THING... just a well-deserved and desperately needed "off season."  (On the tail end of this for other aerialists...any longer than two weeks and I'd be a rookie again.)

If you are looking for such an opportunity, it is easy to find.  Just be in a long term relationship with someone who gets hired by a Big Company and so moves you out of state!  We put all our crap in a POD (so cool) and took four days to make a 12 hour journey down I-5 to sunny San Francisco.  The trip down, after the initial despair that comes from breaking your heart off of the thing it's grown so attached to, was epically beautiful.  We both bid our fairy treehouse a tearful goodbye, then crammed into my tiny Prius (shut up, haters!) and were off on the long arduous three hour afternoon trip to Portland.  To see Brother + Wife, whom we love to see.

We spent Easter at the river, as brother Joshua and Shaun both share kindred river folk gods.  We I drank pinot noir while Shaun kept his cider cold in the river.  Brother and Shaun built a dam.  Sister in Law and me took naps.  It was as good as it gets on an Easter Sunday by the river, with cherished ones.

Leaving Portland, Shaunypants had a desire to see Crater Lake, so we made our way through the AWESOME DRIVE that is through the National Forests towards Crater Lake.  We decided to see it in the morning, so spent the night at I swear to God it was the hotel from Twin Peaks  Diamond Lakes Lodge.  The lake was cold  frozen.  I was terrified Shaun would walk out onto it.  I don't know why.  Maybe because when you find yourself suddenly and utterly changed at a crazily snow-packed mountain lodge from Twin Peaks, you panic that the one thing that is certain will also go away.

But he did not.  He bought me a turkey steak and we passed out next to lamps made of deer antlers.

The next day we saw Crater Lake, and I fell into a snow drift.

Here is a picture of the lake:

Moments before falling in the snow drift (that snow is 11' deep):

The awesome Twin Peaks ish lodge:

We also had world famous pie, got creeped out by the Mystery Spot in Oregon, and hiked to Mills Creek Falls.  Then Shaun drove alllll the rest of the way and we got to SF at 1:30am that evening.

Ta-da!  Now we are here.

Awesome things about taking time off from aerial:
ability to wear lotion during the day
ability to have mimosas on Saturday Tuesday mornings
ability to heal blablablabla

I went back to Circus Center today, where I saw the fabulous Dwoira Galilea AND Eve Diamond (go ahead and be super jealous).  Results were super flexible but shaky and WOW really weak.  Time to revisit humility.

More later.  Hope you are all having dinner right now (west coast).