Tomorrow classes start. Luckily, according to ratemyprofessors.com, both my ecology and stats teachers are acceptable..actually praised. So thank goodness for that. In 20 minutes job pick starts, and I'm pining for recycling and lock-up.
Today Matt, Archie, Paul, and I went hiking up Mary's Peak, a smallish mountain that is, in Paul's words, "one bitch of a hill." We just parked along a wide shoulder and scrambled through the underbrush and up the peak. It was intense. I have the battle scars (bramble scratches and dirty socks) to prove it. I found a lot of mountain beaver burrows. Good exercise. We saw Mt. Hood and the three sisters from one side and the ocean from the other side. Then we went to Fred Meyer where I purchased grocery essentials (raw cashews, gardenburgers, stone-ground wheat bread, etc.) and more school supplies.

Yesterday Matt and I went to Newport. We wandered around a few shops and lounged on the beach, which was really nice and not cluttered with trash. Then we went to Rogue Public House in the historic bayfront district for dinner, where I got a really good (wild Pacific) salmon melt with french fries. We heard the barking of sea lions in the bay but couldn't locate them. After dinner we drove back to the park by the beach and Matt spotted a raccoon in the trees. It was a bobtailed raccoon too! Probably had a run-in with a fierce cougar. Or a car. We walked along the beach, saw several formations of brown pelicans fly overhead, and watched the sunset. It was a good time. We then drove back, singing along to the White Stripes (badly, except Matt's rendition of Hello Operator). We went for hot fudge sundaes at Dairy Queen once back in Corvallis. Samantha and Kevin stopped by around 11 to return my ID card, which I'd let her borrow for the football game.

Other than these two days things have been pretty lackluster. I guess I'm ready for classes and the FW Club meetings to get under way. Oo, I downloaded a bunch of Daria episodes from OSU's "sharing hub." It is nifty.