New England.

Nature makes me wary.

I spent last weekend in gorgeous New Haven, just before the terrible weather hit the east coast, with one of my favorite people [hi, Andrew!]. It had been nearly four years since I'd seen him; the budding archaeologist is currently working on his doctorate at Yale, in between tromping all over the globe. I am mostly proud and only a tiny bit [FINE, YES, A LOT] jealous. It was a great little trip, full of tiny wonderful moments, but before I jump into stories, I thought I'd introduce you to the area. And Andrew, of course.

 It was perfect fall weather, and he suggested that we wander to the park and up the hill. I naively agreed that this was a fantastic plan.

This was our goal. There were, as it turned out, gigantic stone steps along the way. I gamely scrambled up until I couldn't breathe. Andrew was very nice about my lack of physical prowess and I tried to pretend that I was posing on the steps instead of just basically trying not to die.

We got stuck behind a couple of 10 year old boys who also felt that they were dying -- bless their hearts, it allowed me to inch along with them. When we got to the top, we were rewarded with a spectacular views of New Haven -- even the boys exclaimed that it was beautiful, though that admission was tempered with the discovery that there was a parking lot at the top.

[It was worth it.]

Andrew led us a different way down -- this time, less steps and more downhill! This is me breaking nature.