There and Back ... Again ... and Again

(On the job in Calgary: Exploring the observation deck of the Calgary Tower.)

After being at my company for a little over a year (internship included), I was blessed to have the opportunity to travel for work. I headed to Calgary, Canada, to write a race report on a half Ironman as well as a travel feature on the town (published in the November issue of Triathlete magazine, on newsstands at Barnes & Noble and Borders).

(On the job in Calgary: Ropes course through the trees at Rafter Six Ranch.)

About a month later, I headed to San Antonio on vacation for Labor Day. Stevo and I loved our time there with the parents and seeing a few friends, including Spencer and Laura Williams. On the Friday of Labor Day weekend, we headed to New Braunfels to float down the Guadalupe River, stubbornly insistent that we should accomplish that activity before the Saturday, Sunday and Monday rush.

(Before floating down the Guadalupe River.)

We should have known after not seeing a single inner tube (or "toob" in Texas lingo) on the river the entire drive that it was a bad day. Storms threatened all morning, and the sun only rarely peaked through the clouds, but we sucked it up, climbed aboard the windowless van with ripped seats bolted to the floorboard ("The air conditioning kicks on at 30 miles per hour," the driver told us), and headed to our entry point. Just as we climbed in, the sun peaked through the clouds and warmed us up. We told ourselves, "We're so glad we decided to do this." It was only 20 minutes later when I started shivering, realizing that neither my bathing suit, my toob or the brown water that surrounded me (in which we saw several turtles) could keep me warm for the supposed three hours we had left to ride. We came to a few rapids, and Laura and I just tried to keep track of our "cooler toob" (inner toob with a bottom to hold a cooler, which we filled with Gatorade, water and snacks) while Steve and Spencer climbed out to repeat the same sets of rapids. Eventually we came to "The Shoot" an especially quick-moving set of rapids that threatened toob toppling. Laura and I zoomed through while the guys decided to climb out and repeat it multiple times. We floated on, hoping to get out of the water to warm up. We arrived back at the rental location, realized we didn't have all the equipment to return and thus couldn't receive our key back nor wrap ourselves in beach towels. Frustrated, we took this photo once the guys finally decided to grace us with their presence:


I returned home for one day of work before flying back out to Austin to write a travel feature on the town as a winter weekend getaway location for the January issue of Triathlete. My mom joined me for one night, as did one of my best friends from high school. Travel writing is so great -- you basically get shown around, dined and chatted up about a town (no real interviewing needed) all for free. That was when I realized that this is what I can do with my life. I'm never going to be a triathlon expert, a fashion guru or a political analyst, which would be great for the magazine business, but gosh darn, I love to travel, and I can do it well. I think I've had enough travel experience in my life to feel pretty comfortable anywhere in the world, and I think I've traveled so much that it's only given me a thirst for more. Last month, Steve and I went to see Anthony Bourdain (show: "No Reservations") at the California Center for the Arts (side note: Sam the Cooking Guy sat in the seat right next to me... what are the chances?). And he went on and on about all the places he had been and all of his favorite places, especially ones where he loved the cuisine. Steve and I sat there drooling--over the chance to be paid to travel. We'll see where this road leads, and I'm so loving my job right now, especially now that I'm being trusted with more writing. But I could see myself down the road looking into travel writing of some sort.

The last week of September I traveled to Interbike, an insanely large bike tradeshow. (The month of September included eight actual flights--a new record for me.) It was in Las Vegas, in The Venetian. We stayed in The Palazzo (owned by/connected to The Venetian). It was my first trip to Vegas--can't say that I liked it much after about 10 p.m., but other than that (what I saw of it) was pretty fun. I was so worn out from work, though, that I didn't see much. Steve joined me on the Friday of the week (as a sort of six-month anniversary celebration), we went out for dinner and saw the water show at The Bellagio (the one thing I for sure wanted to see in Vegas).

I gambled $1 and lost it all on the penny slots. And my first trip to Vegas felt complete (Steve and I are returning Thanksgiving weekend with our friends Josh and Laura Lewis once Josh is back from Afghanistan).


In the midst of all of this, Stevo and I met with a mortgage broker and have put offers on three houses, all in Escondido, all short sales. We love all of them, but are willing to be patient to see if this is really where we're supposed to be right now. At one point a couple of weeks ago, I counted up 14 women I know who are pregnant (I think it's down to 12 now--some of them had their babies), but I'm not hopping on that train anytime soon. And in a fit of creativity this week, I created an autumn wreath, with the help of my good friend Heather Gray. $14, thank you very much:And I currently have a couple of stories online on the Triathlete.com site as the entire office gears up for (and flies to) Kona for the Ironman World Championship, to take place on Saturday. And for the friends I haven't spoken with since the wedding (there are a lot of you), please call me. I'd love to chat--life has just been a little fast-paced in the last six months (and you're probably thinking, "What's new?").

Life Abbreviated (where my time has gone)

Update on life:
Since May, Steve was in Spencer & Laura's wedding in Dallas, Texas, at the beginning of June (such a beautiful ceremony at Watermark).
Steve spent a month in front of the TV watching the World Cup.
We went to the wedding of one of my coworkers in Point Loma.
I went to see Switchfoot at the Del Mar Fair with some old Kaleo folks.
I took the train to Santa Barbara for Emily Harms' lingerie shower and then hung out in Orange County with the cousins for 4th of July.
Our nephew, Jack Bailey Mavis, was born. I drove to Santa Barbara the next weekend to be a bridesmaid in Emily's wedding (beautiful!), and Steve met me up there. We stayed in the Coast Village Inn, which we booked for really cheap on Priceline... but we had to sleep in two twin beds. Serves us right.
We went to a wedding in Balboa Park for one of my old roommates, and we went to see Jim Gaffigan at Humphrey's on Shelter Island (where we got engaged just over a year ago).
I'm now in Calgary on my first travel assignment, for which I wrote a race report and will write a travel feature.

Still to come:
No more weddings till October.
Brother Andrew moving to Paris at end of August and friend Emily West moving to China in mid-August.
Trip to San Antonio for Labor Day. There are plans to float down the Guadalupe River.
Chris and Tiff (our friends and neighbors) are expecting a baby girl in late November.
Alex and Alison (my cousins) are expecting a baby boy in early December.
Week-long trip to Europe in January with the Leach family to visit Andrew (and take a bike tour).
Tim and Leslie (my cousins) are expecting a baby in February.

BMavis'ed

I am only halfway through the process of changing my name from Leach to Mavis after getting married more than two months ago. It's an incredible headache to change a name, and especially so when I'm changing from a Texas to California resident in the process. Today, my name was officially changed at work, forcing me to surrender my e-mail address beginning with "bleach," only to be replaced by a much less clever-sounding "bmavis."*

The wedding was beautiful. Everything fell into place so much better than I could have hoped. I was an emotional wreck the last month, but it turned out better than I could have hoped. After a blur of a wedding, Steve surprised me with two nights in an ocean view room at the Hotel Del Coronado, plus a one-hour massage the day after the wedding. We then flew to the East Coast to spend the remainder of our honeymoon in The Berkshires in western Massachusetts. It was a little brisk (29 degrees the day we left) but beautiful and sunny. We took day trips around the area, never passing through anything larger than what could be considered a "town," stopped in local book stores, coffee shops, hole-in-the-wall restaurants and a couple art museums. We slept in every day, and RedBoxed movies to watch at night by the fire.

We got home to Escondido to a pile of wedding gifts and unpacked boxes (all mine), and are just now starting to feel settled. I returned to life as an assistant editor, and I'm loving my job. I'm published in the current (June) issue of Triathlete magazine. We traveled to Texas in April for a post-wedding reception at my parents' house, and I just got back from my brother's high school graduation in San Antonio. I'm currently overwhelmed by the remaining things to change my name on, but I'm taking them one step at a time.

*Rest assured, the name of this blog will not be changing to "BMavis'ed."

The Golden Ticket

My college years instigated a caffeine addiction that has stuck with me. My post-collegiate years have ushered in an era of caffeine addiction on a budget. I don't want to even speculate how much money I have poured into Starbucks coffee. My junior year of college, I moved off campus to Clairemont Mesa. The 25- to 30-minute commute combined with a lack of campus parking forced me to leave the house 45 minutes before class started. During that year, I purchased a Starbucks beverage every single day from the Starbucks half a mile from my house. And not just a drip coffee--but a "fru fru" coffee, as my dad says. By that time in my life, I had graduated from caramel frappucinos and upside-down caramel macchiatos to vanilla lattes (I hadn't added in the "nonfat" to my order yet). And at that time, it cost $3.60 per beverage x 7 days a week = way too much money.

My senior year of college saw less financial help from my parents and more drinking coffee from home. The French vanilla Coffee Mate was always stocked, and my roommates and I worked out a routine of making coffee for each other. I kept going to Starbucks, but maybe only once or twice a week. After returning from Peru, Starbucks didn't sound appealing to me, especially with the abnormally hot summer San Diego had.

Now that the chill has set in, though, I've gone back to craving Starbucks. I still drink coffee from home every morning, but I sometimes need a grande nonfat vanilla latte pick-me-up in the late afternoon.

This week has been especially exhausting for me--waking up early to train for a half marathon, writing a newspaper article after work and trying to maintain some semblance of a social life. It's Thursday afternoon (which is like my Friday afternoon because I don't typically work Fridays), I'm running out of work to keep me occupied, and I needed a little liquid energy. I drove over to Starbucks, which was busy for 1:30 on a Thursday, and ordered my beverage. The price has gone up--it's now $3.85 for my grande beverage. I grabbed it from the bar but was a little distracted by a phone conversation. I drove back to work, sat at my desk and continued working when I took my first sip. Blech. I removed the lid--it was the color of mud, not vanilla goodness. I was so mad that my $3.85 Starbucks drink, which is now so rare a treat, was ruined. I stormed out of the office, starting to picture myself walking toward the counter angry, demanding a new drink and a free one. Or maybe a venti one.

Of course, conflict-hater that I am, I patiently waited in line until the ignorant lady in front of me ordered a "medium" mocha with "not that much chocolate." I then got all mousy and my hands got all shaky. I told the manager, "I was here about 10 minutes ago, and I ordered a vanilla latte," and then revealed the color of my beverage. "And that is not a vanilla latte," the kind bearded man replied. He took the drink from my hands and poured it out in the sink before wiping up the spill (from shaky hands) on the counter. The teenaged barista tried to defend himself, saying I had grabbed the wrong cup, but the manager defended me, reading "grande nonfat vanilla latte for Bethany" off the cup. I confirmed with a head nod.

The new beverage was out in a jiffy, and with it the embarrassed barista handed me the Starbucks golden ticket, good for any size or kind of beverage, even with extra shots. Merry Christmas to me.

Engagement Photos

In mid-September, our friend Laura Lewis took some engagement photos for us. I thought it'd be fun to take pictures in the Point Loma area--Cabrillo National Monument, Sunset Cliffs and Shelter Island. Steve thought it would only take about half an hour to take engagement photos (it took us about three hours). He was a good sport, other than the above photo.

In this photo, you can see Young Hall, one of the freshman guys' dorms on the Point Loma campus. There was a big swell that day, and we had planned to go down toward the water. Instead we watched the surfers try to paddle out while avoiding being crashed against the cliffs.

Touring S.D.

One of the things I appreciate about Steve's and my relationship is that we try to take advantage of the fun things to do in San Diego. We spend the last few weekends of summer doing fun stuff with friends around town.

After Oregon, I paid for Steve and I to see the musical "Wicked" while it was in San Diego at the Civic Theater, and we went with our friends Chris and Tiff (Steve didn't want to go to a musical without another guy there). It was amazing -- totally worth it.
We also decided to go to the horse races at Del Mar with Chris and Tiff, and my friend Amy. Amy and I dressed up, as is traditional, and I finally got to wear my big hat (which I bought last summer specifically for the races but never got to wear it). I actually did great on my betting -- over the course of the day I placed about twelve $2 bets and ended up making about $35. Out of the five of us Tiff was the only other person that won any money, and she only won on the last race, so they all kind of hated me for it.
After the races, Steve, Tiff, Chris and I used our Wild Animal Park passes to ride the tram and see the animals for the last hour it was open. We saw lions, giraffes, rhinos, zebras and all kinds of antelope things. So much fun.

Where does everyone summah?

About a week and a half after getting engaged, Steve and I met my mom's side of the family in Brookings, Ore., for a week-long vacation at a beach house. We were celebrating my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary, and since Grandma's from Medford, she wanted us all to spend some time near her hometown. The photo above is the view from the house, and the photo below is some of us on our (almost) private beach.

We saw all kinds of wildlife this trip. The water was freezing, and the beach was very rocky, which was kind of painful to walk on, but eventually your feet got numb (from the temperature or the pain) and then it was OK.

One day we all went on a six-hour riverboat tour up the Rogue River. It was amazing... definitely recommend it. On that trip we saw a harbor seal, bald eagles, ospreys, river otters, a black bear and deer. We went over rapids and got soaked, and then we had a quick dinner on an outdoor patio at a restaurant along the river. This is cousin Timmy and I right before we went on the trip (and before my hair got put in a ponytail from being so gosh darn wet and windblown... those boats are fast).
Another day trip took us to the lighthouse at Crescent City in the very northwest corner of California. The lighthouse is on this little island that is only accessible at low tide. We just barely made it back across the rocks before the tide came in.
On the way back from Crescent City, we stopped in Fort Dick to pick some blackberries. Charlie and Timmy were amused by the name.
Toward the end of the week, we went to the redwood forest -- this is in Jedediah Smith, where part of "Return of the Jedi" was filmed. We went on a hike for maybe a mile, but turned around because we were really hungry.
The last night, we went to the nearby state park to watch the sunset. It was chilly but beautiful. Andrew brought that hat back from Ireland to give Stevo.
After the sunset, we had cake and champagne to celebrate Grandma and Grandpa's anniversary. We also spelled out "Happy 60th" on the beach using driftwood.
Grandma and I posed with the sailor dude outside our incredible rental house right before we left for the airport. It was an incredible week of quality time with the fam. I'm glad Steve and I were both able to take the time off work to take a week-long vacation.