Summering the Winter Away in Rancho

Tonight will be my third night down south, and life has been good. I'm settling in quite easily, I think (having already been here twice made it even easier, I'm sure). School has been going pretty well, so has writing. Change of place used to throw me off my game a bit, but that doesn't seem to be at all true here. I certainly don't mind the change!

The weather is beautiful here. It's been around 65-70 degrees, mostly clear and sunny with a few white clouds hither and thither. Somehow the whole atmosphere here seems very conducive to physical fitness, and as I had already planned to get my exercise back on track here, things look promising for my oft-neglected musculature. I won't be satisfied until I can say in a month or so that I've lived up to it, though.

I took a walk today. It was a really long one, long enough to leave me a bit pooped out by the end, but it was very worth it. I got to go through some very nice neighborhoods and make a circuit around Lago Santa Margarita, a nice little lake and evidently something of a social hotspot. I wisely took a camera, and here are some of the results:

The little neighborhood path that runs behind our house (complete with chin-up and bar-dip bars along the way!)

From what I can tell, a fairly typical Rancho street.

My cool sun shot. :)

I betcha I won't see too many of these around Hillsdale!

Rancho is surrounded by some bold hills; as you can see here, this one was doing something of a "Battle in the Clouds" effect during my walk, although I didn't see Hooker's corps.

Lago Santa Margarita.

And the other end of it...

And now looking along the shore (I think the eastern shore, given that the sun was setting at the time) toward the end shown in the first shot.

Pretty cool, huh? I've also been having fun starting on the pirate books David lent me (thanks!) and learning all about buccaneers, filibusters, privateers, and the whole scurvy lot of 'em. Oh, and I'm finally working in earnest on the last chapter of Kiriana. So much for my "end of January" predictions, but such rules are made to be broken. Or at least we tardy authors had better hope they are! :P

Cheerio, all.