Winter... and Summer

So I sit here outside the office...on my vacation week. I am in the warm sunshine in a tank top and shorts while I look up at the snowy mountains. It messes with my head. How can I work all week in the cold and snow and come home to summertime? I suppose elevation has something to do with it, hehe, but crazy. I have been working a bit frantically lately. My work schedule has been busy and I recently started my online class ("Meeting Diverse Learners in an Inclusive Classroom") in order to keep my teaching certification. Ok, I'll admit, it is a bit of a fun novelty to be back in the books and studying again. The class is interesting, but hard to come home to after a full day of work. So this week, my vacation week, I think is going to be mostly devoted to working ahead for this class and general life management to make life easier in the future. And even though it is winter right now (winter that currently feels like summer), I have excitement planned for the real summer. I will be returning to Tennessee as a summer naturalist at Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont. I was an intern there a few years back, and am anxious to go salamander hunting and hiking in Appalachia once more. I may also be looking around at options for grad school in that area--eeks! I will be coming back to Yosemite in the fall, but I figure I am a professional now at cross country driving. I am hoping when I return to Yosemite in the fall, I will have enough time on that drive to swing through Ohio, Indiana, and maybe even Minnesota?? I have never been to Minnesota before and I hear some pretty cool people live there. So depending on timing at the end of the summer, late summer may bring some fab adventures. Woohoohoo. :)