A New England and Amish Autumn

After a hot dry summer the last two weekends have actually felt like fall. The leaves are changing, the weather is perfect (light jacket weather), and it's been raining on and off. Last weekend a group of us left DC for Boston to visit our good friend Suzy. She lived in DC, but moved to Boston in the spring to work on the Mitt Romney campaign. We only had two days, but we really packed it in.

Highlights:

• We went on a duck tour where you ride on an authentic amphibious WWII landing vehicle. And let me tell, I was that cheesy tourist that I get so annoyed by in DC, and I loved every minute of it. Our guide called himself "Sergeant Meatball" and made us yell "quack quack!" whenever we saw people walking on the street, he probably weighed 300 pounds and was wearing a hula skirt and a hawaiian shirt.
  
• Canoli in Little Italy
• Street Performers downtown. I especially loved the breakdancers.
• Our VIP tour of Mitt's headquarters.
• Cuddling with all the roommates + Odie in Suzy's bed.
• We went to the Head of the Charles. A crew rowing race where colleges come from all over the country to compete. It's really close to Harvard campus and we wandered over to watch a little bit of a Princeton vs. Harvard football game. And let me tell you the Princeton band's outfits were something else.
• 
• We watched part of the Red Sox semifinals verses the Cleveland Indians in a sports bar in Harvard Square.

I spent this weekend in Amish Country, Lancaster Pennsylvania. A group of us went to ride what has become a tradition here in DC. Dutch Bike Dutch. We did a forty mile ride and it was beautiful. It had rained for three days straight. And stopped right as we began our ride Saturday morning. We were fully prepared with rain gear, but didn't end up needing it. We crossed wooden bridges, saw amish children and buggies, llamas, and pumpkin patches.
Pictures from this will have to be forthcoming, I didn't do the best job of documenting this trip.

Oh mother nature

You may think that this moose is just a sweet and innocent animal wandering through the mountains looking for food and family. That may be your impression now, but when he is staring you down from ten feet away he will make you want to wet your pants. On my trip to Utah last weekend Des and I went biking in American Fork canyon. We had been going for no longer than five minutes when I slammed on my brakes because directly in front of me on the path was this moose. I know, the picture isn't as impressive from fifty feet away. But it's the best I could do because I was so scared and didn't want to do anything that would startle it when it was close. Des and I really aren't up to par on our wilderness survival skills and so when we both realized we had no idea what to do, retreat, play dead, climb a tree....we decided to do the only thing we did know how to do. After our friend Bullwinkle took a few more steps towards us we decided to pray. And of course no sooner had we started praying that the moose turned away from us and got off our bike path and walked around us. My testimony grew, the crisis was averted, and the bike ride was spectacular.