Family Vacation

I am feeling a bit better now about the job situation and trying to put a positive spin on things. It is difficult to know that a recent graduate won out for my job. I have never been a particularly strong interviewer though, and I need to work on improving. To that end, I have scheduled a couple of meetings with the people that interviewed me to get some pointers. Mostly I just have a hard time thinking of the right thing to say on the spot. Not that I say the wrong thing, just that I don't always hit everything they want to hear. It would help to have some insight into what I missed this time, so hopefully I won't next time.

Before I got the job news, I was camping with my family on Lake Roosevelt. The weather was perfect--pretty hot, but dry and managable. My uncle brought his boat and we had a great time cruising the lake and taking turns on the See-Doo. We put on sunscreen constantly, but we all turned out various shades of red and pink by the end. The last day I skipped the lake and hung in the shade reading Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. The Boy also stayed back and read the rest of the second Maximum Ride book by James Patterson and started So, Yesterday by Scott Westerfeld. I wasn't sure if he would like the second one but he did. The shade was heavenly.

There was a particular bathroom at our group site which was cleaner and less smelly than the others. It was under the trees, so was always bathed in a greenish golden glow. There were dry leaves and other bracken on the ground, which was comprised of a soft sand. As you walked towards it, the ground appeared to break apart and fly away from your feet. This was caused by the many locusts residing there. They were smaller than I had seen, smaller than most grasshoppers, but maybe they were immature. As you took a step the little buggers would hop away from your feet suddenly, but otherwise kept still. It was an odd phenomenon and the obvious reason for name of our campsite, Locust Grove.

We also had quite the chorus of frogs at night. Chirping filled the darkness and lulled us to sleep (and kept a few of us awake). The Boy caught one on our second night. It was green on top, white on the bottom and about the size of a ping pong ball. When I held it, it felt very squishy, like a damp leather sack with liquid and sticks in it. It was still hopping around and trying to get away. The next day at the lake I caught a tad pole. The round part of the tadpole was actually bigger than the frog that we had handled the night before and darker green with a longish tail.

On our 3rd full day, they (meaning the Dam) raised the level of the lake by about 3 feet. This had several effects. First, it covered the beach that we had enjoyed so much the previous two days. Second, it lifted all the flotsam into the water that had previously been hanging out around the shore and stirred up all the silt around the banks. Third, it displaced the mosquitos who suddenly found us to be quite appetizing. In other words, day three paled in comparison to our other days, so I was happy to let the others go enjoy the dirty water and get more burned while I sat in the shade with a book. Even if I was mosquito food.