More visits

My time here at NCAR is winding down. I am almost done with the assignment that I was given at the beginning - I will probably finish it my last day here (this upcoming friday). This weekend is my last one here in Boulder and it got down to 50 degrees and rained the whole time. Because my bike is my only means of travel and I am up on a big hill, I stayed in most of the day yesterday. I did get out for a couple hours to exercise and relax at a bookstore.

Two weekends ago Em came out again as we found a pretty cheap flight. We actually weren't planning on her coming out as it was too expensive but the day before she flew out I found a pretty cheap flight on Expedia so we booked it - and we were happy we did. It was memorial day weekend and there were lots of fun things going on in Boulder. Memorial day weekend is HUGE in Boulder - especially because of the Bolder Boulder, the third largest race in America. It is a 10k and people from all over the world run it. On Saturday we went downtown to a huge fair that had hundreds of tents/booths set up and walked around. Pretty much every other booth was giving out free samples such as milk cartons, granola bars, tons of energy drinks, candy, dog food, etc. - I loved it! In fact, we ended up having to get a bag to put all our stuff in. I still have some of the food left over that I am still eating.

Sunday was a nice relaxing day. At church we met another couple close to our age - the husband's name is Scott and he is interning at NCAR this summer also. He is a statistics PhD student at Texas A&M and he and his wife invited us over for dinner. Dinner was a lot of fun, we visited for about 4 hours getting to know each other and learning about A&M. They made a strong case for it as it is a good program, nice area, very cheap housing, etc.

Memorial day was the Bolder Boulder so Em and I went down to check it out. Again there were lots of free samples that were handed out and there were TONS of people. We went in the stadium for a little bit and watched a pretty constant wave of people of all ages cross the finish line. Em and I decided that if I am in Boulder next summer again (a pretty good chance) then we would run it.

The rest of Memorial day we decided to drive up in the canyon to a lake that Sara and John had told us was pretty. The drive was gorgeous and the whole way Em and I played our typical games that we play in the car - Ghost (where you each take turns saying a letter that is part of a word but you can't finish the word or you lose), Numbers (you pick a random high number and you keep adding numbers in some range until one of you gets to the high number in which case you lose), and Categories (you pick a category

and you start taking turns saying objects in that category until one of you runs out of things t

o say). I think Em is better than me at Ghost but I think I am better at Categories. The lake was really pretty and it felt really good to be up in the mountains. We walked around for a little bit then returned home.