Her Tongue is Bigger than Her Head.

Seriously. I had no idea it was so long until Friday, when we went to Valley Forge to take advantage of the PERFECT weather with sun so bright and lovely that I am now pink-tinted and in pain (but it was completely worth it). Anyways, Callie was in seventh heaven. There were SO MANY new places to sniff where other dogs (and deer!) had peed. She could hardly stand it.

After being out in the sun for 4 hours, though, she was thoroughly exhaustified with the world, and was ready to drink a big bowl of water and resume her normal sloth-like attitude on the couch (or bed, whatever's available, really). We walked with a wonderful friend of mine whom I knew in my past life at Middlebury, where we were in the same a cappella group (I still refer to her as my alto mama. I'm not kidding.). Sarah lives about 10 minutes from Valley Forge (about 12 miles and 30 minutes from Bryn Mawr, with traffic, arg), and introduced Callie and me to this fantastic national park. I can't believe it's been at our fingertips since we moved here in August and we haven't visited once. It's a huge, sprawling park with trails in the woods, mountains in the distance, lots of resident deer, and a 5 mile paved path that weaves throughout it.

Anyways, after a delicious picnic (note to self: Whole Foods pasta salad is orgasmic. Probably ridiculously expensive, but orgasmic nonetheless.), we began our walk around the park, and hiked around for a couple of hours. It did my body and mind so much good to be outside for an extended period of time--I don't think I've spent that much time outside all at once since last summer. Ugh. Embarrassing. So I think because I've spent all winter holed up in the apartment, watching really awful TV, or holed up in the library, translating vast amounts of Latin and Greek, the walk was REALLY refreshing--there was a great breeze, which kept us from getting stiflingly hot, and because it was early afternoon on a weekday, the park wasn't jam packed (as I'm sure it is on weekends).

Being outside, being schedule-free, eating WATERMELON (which Sarah also brought), and spending the day with Callie made me positively ITCH for summer. Mmm...flip flops, cold Diet Coke, windows down, walking barefoot on cool grass, shorts and t-shirts, leaving the windows open at night, tree frogs and crickets chirping their symphonies, searching for the shade when I'm running, popsicles, berries, mangoes, sleeping in...can't wait.