where the heart is

Back in Tacoma! It kind of feels like I never left! I got into town late on the night of the 4th and pretty much just went to bed, but the next day we went down to one of my favorite places in town, played pool and caught up over some delicious beer. After having many months of solo "me time," it's nice to come back to a community of friends. I'm new in town, but it feels like I've lived here for a long time. Maybe that's the mark of a good place to live- some place that feels like you've lived there a while, when you've only just arrived. Although, they say home is where the heart is, so perhaps that has something to do with it as well. One thing's for sure, I need to get in shape because riding bikes everywhere is hard! Especially when you ride an impractical, heavy-ass cruiser like I do. What I need is one of them fancy road bikes, but I'm broke and frugal so I guess that means it's muscle building time! C'mon legs, you can do it!

Clearly I was into stealing borrowing people's hats because I'm wearing Ben's hat in the picture above, and one of Dan's hat's below. I'm pretty sure I had another one of Dan's hats on at some point during the evening.

We started out hanging at the tavern drinking really tasty beers, and then decided our bank accounts would probably appreciate it more if we graduated to drinking PBR at home. We played a little bit of King's Cup, which is probably the explanation for Ben's really enthusiastic expression below, haha! Maybe my really enthusiastic expression above as well!

Here's a picture from my drive up to Tacoma-- snow! This was the first (and only) snow I've seen on my whole trip! I can't believe it's December and I haven't seen snow yet. In Alaska it's been snowy since late October. Even here in Tacoma it's completely snow-less, though I know there was a blizzard a couple weeks ago. I think I'm going to grab my El Camino soon, if it continues to be snow-less. The poor girl can't drive in the snow. No positraction. So she basically has one wheel drive. Not the best for getting anywhere in wintery conditions. Luckily western Washington winters are relatively mild, and I plan on biking most places anyway!

And for a little bit of blog business, we have the winner of the Archives Chicago giveaway! The winner is... Carrie Rosalind!