West--and back again.

We've taken the long way home, and have now put well over 10,000 miles on the car since the start of summer (a lot of those miles were on the thirty-mile [each way] commute I had in LA while visiting the Huntington). August gave us some splendid opportunities to catch up with friends, most of whom aren't pictured in this blog.

We hiked a mountain in LA with two friends, and--along the way--took "Car Wreck Trail," which is, as the photo should show, a fairly apt appellation:

On the same hike, I caught my first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean in more than a decade. (If you look very closely, the tiny white smear above the "v" of the mountains is a wave in the Pacific. I promise).

I took an afternoon (and only one, I promise!) off from library work to tour the beautiful grounds of the Huntington with I. and my mom. Here they are in the ;arge library:

Other features of the Huntington include the Chinese Garden . . .

. . . the Japanese garden, which is unfortunatelyunder construction but still quite lovely . . .

. . . the rose garden, with several statues . . .

. . . and the lovely buildings that house collections of art and literature:

Another fun feature is the garden of Shakespeare statues, which is lovely:

On a Sunday when the library was closed, I. and I took a trip to the Santa Monica Pier, which is a fun and lovely place with all sorts of exciting people to watch.

The Pacific was gorgeous!

The sunset was also quite lovely:

After our time in the West was spent, we headed for a quick trip to Sin City to visit my grandmother, who took us to a posh casino ("for locals") with this enormous chandelier:

(And she bought us drinks:)

Back in Albuquerque briefly, we loaded up a moving van with the greater part of our worldly possessions, and then drove it two thousand (and sixty) miles across the country just in time--we thought--to meet Hurricane Irene.

We crossed the Mississippi River and got to see a few friends (and family members!) based in the central states of this very large country.

And at long last we reached "home" --or at least our current stop on this seemingly-neverending saga.

At the moment we are based on this pretty piece of God's brown soil, and I'm making day trips (and some longer trips) to libraries on the East Coast. All is well, although we are a little weary from our journeys, and we are staying out of trouble pretty well.