Melanie, Caitlin, Fish and I did our distance classic ski together this morning. I stopped to pee and while I was trying to catch up, I saw this little orange lizard thing on the pavement and thought, "that's crazy, I've never seen a lizard like that. It must be some kid's plastic toy that got lost out the car window." But when I caught the other girls, Caitlin confirmed that there were, in fact, bright orange salamanders out here crawling around. It was a cold, rainy morning so they were out on the pavement trying to warm up. All over, like west coast slugs. We also saw a frog and a deer. Then, as we started down a hill a black bear ran across the road in front of us. It was a cute little one that makes you say, "aww, cute" not one that makes you say, "eek!" And Caitlin and I talked about how we like that the water around here actually moves, like in brooks and rivers, as opposed to the Midwest where it sits in lakes and these extensive connecting bodies of water they call flowages.