Four staff, including myself, from the outdoor school I work at carpooled in one of the company vans up to the AEOE convention. For once I wasn't driving, which was kind of nice. We got to the convention site at Walker Creek Ranch sometime around five on Friday, and got right to work by becoming the greeting committee, complete with funny hats and chocolate to hand out to people as they drove in. The rest of the weekend went by pretty fast. The food in the dining hall was phenomenal, the workshops were good, the people were nice, and the campground was pretty crowded. I ran into a few people that I'd worked with at previous jobs, but not the ones I expected to see. We went on a really nice hike up through a beautiful forest of Bay Laurel and fern. I saw a Western Racer, which is a snake I haven't seen in the wild since my high school snake catching days. It is an aptly named snake, and shot down a hole before I could catch it. Much slower was the Gopher snake we came across later, which just sat there and allowed us to pick it up without protest. The trail led up to a summit dotted with cows and large, jiggly fungi. It looked like the former had been dining on the latter. Of course, everybody had an opinion on everything we came across, because everybody on the hike was a naturalist. Most of us were outdoor school employees. One of my coworkers noted the tendency of members of the group to "blurt the spiel" as enthusiasm waxed over bits of lichen or scat. We were all obviously used to orating in front of groups of elementary school students.
I finally got to camp out under the stars again, which I've been meaning to find the time to do. There's nothing quite like laying on one's back in a sleeping bag and staring up at the stars. It was also nice to see all of the wild turkey strutting around, with the occasional rooster thrown in for good measure.
On the down side, I spent the whole weekend with a runny nose and the general lack of energy that comes with having a low-grade cold. Since then, it's developed into a sinus infection. I also wish that I'd known in advance about the photo contest being held. Oh well.
The various speakers and other people I met gave me things to think about, which I won't blather on about here. It is interesting to see a large chunk of the outdoor education community come together, and to realize that there are many similarities between the various schools.

I got home late on Sunday afternoon, and got to spend the rest of the evening with just Jen and Willow, since the three older kids were still at their dad's house. It was nice to get a little down time before the heathens once again descended. Of course, Willow is quite the little heathen herself these days. She's also got a bigger vocabulary and more teeth all of a sudden. Now if we could only figure out why her extremities sometimes turn purply blue.

Today everythings back to normal. Everybody is home. A new work week has started. We started off the week by finding several scorpions and one of the opportunistic, puddle dwelling Garter snakes swimming amongst the tadpoles. Most of the tadpoles now have their legs, which is good because the puddle they're living in is nearly gone.

Hopefully I can hang in there this week. Sinus infections are uncomfortable.