Friday, January 27, 2012

Times Like These...

I have a band-aid on my face.  My pants ripped at the pocket seam.  I haven't brushed my hair in two weeks.  


Yeah, this pretty much sums up the sad state of life I find myself in recently.  


I also have a huge pile of laundry that has been spilling out between two laundry baskets since the last time I brushed my hair.  My car used to be red and is now some shade of dun due to the dust it has accumulated.  


I sat on my couch for the better part of two hours tonight, fantasizing about eating Greek food but knew that it would mean brushing my hair and taking the band-aid off my face.  Eventually I got off the couch and into my dun-colored car.  I walked into the restaurant to enjoy a meal by my onesies, band-aid and tangled hair included.


Hopefully I can pull out of this sometime.  


And get myself some new pants...

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Havasupai Time...

Aside from making a clever (if over-used) pun, Havasupai is A. MAZ. ING.  I tossed and turned in bed the other night because I inadvertently forgot to mention that I went there this summer.  In June.  For the third time in my life.  

My large camera is not easy to take on 11 mile hikes (that's just to get INTO the campground) and my little camera was without batteries, so all of the pictures from '09 and '11 are lifted from other people.  



The first time 'round...
June 2008
I love my Chacos.  They went all three times with me.

This is what Havasu Falls looked like pre-flood .  In July of 2008, a dam broke and changed the course of the river.  

Watch out for the mules!  You don't know they're upon you until, well, they're upon you.

A moment of silence for Navajo Falls.  They are no more.  The big flood of July 2008 changed the course of the river so much that this area is now bone dry.

Beaver Falls makes a great day hike.  And yellow bandanas go stylishly well with red shorts and blue t-shirts.

There used to be a great hole for doing some rope swinging.  The flood changed the level of the river because so much earth moved.

Here is where people launched themselves into the water.  I have no upper-body strength, so I snapped great pictures instead.

This has GOT to be my favorite rope-swinging picture EVER.

Or maybe this one.  It looks like he's sitting on her head.

Yes, someone took a hammock.
Again...
June 2009
This is a shot of us scaling mountain walls to go down to Beaver Falls. The first stop is the bottom of Moony Falls.

Packing back up to go to camp from Beaver Falls.

We bought an amazing hat for a friend's birthday gift.  We decided we should take pictures with it.
 Hit me baby, one more time...
June 2011
My Livin' It UP! girls came this year.  I love them.  This is how Havasu Falls looked this summer.  Notice it is not nearly as powerful.

And Beaver Falls again!

Moony!  Gettin' our Zen on.

I need to post all the sleeping pictures people have snapped of me.  
 MY FAVORITE PICTURE...
I got up early this particular morning and trekked to Navajo Falls myself.  I snapped some amazing pictures because the light was absolutely perfect.  The colors look unreal.  They are real.


This is one of my favorite places on earth!  It is breathtakingly beautiful and holds wonderful memories for me.  Havasupai was my very first experience doing actual backpacking.  I found I'm made of tougher stuff than I thought (not that Havasupai is very tough, but I'd never done any backpacking before that fateful summer in '08).

Monday, January 2, 2012

Year in Review

Here are a few shots of where I went this year.  
June:  Washington DC and Raleigh, North Carolina
July:   Grand Canyon (North Rim) and Utah
Sept:  Grand Canyon (South Rim)
Oct:   Grand Canyon (South Rim)
Yes, I visited Arlington. Twice in this trip, actually.

Who DOESN'T love all the Smithsonians?

DC is one of my favorite places. 

We ate loads of cupcakes while I was there.

A side trip back to DC (from NC) took us to Washington's birthplace.

The street pretzels in DC were absolutely disappointing.

Grand Canyon!  I visited this place three times this year.  Once in July, once in September and once in October.  Two of the three times, we camped.

We made it up to Bear Lake and did some canoeing.  Not in this, though.  This is CLEARLY a kayak, and CLEARLY not mine.

We also went to a Decemberist concert for free-ninety-free in SLC.

I went to a baseball game in July for the first time in three years.  

THIRTY!  German Chocolate Cake is the BEST way to celebrate getting old!

Here are my feet in the GC after "hiking" with the parents.  We went partially down South Kaibab.

Beautiful sunset picture taken at the GC in September.  I met up with the parents for this trip.
I was not nearly as dedicated to pictorial documentation of my year as I should have been.  Alas!  2011 was a year of growth.  I started my year with a new knee and continued through the year working on a new outlook.  Here's to new adventures and a great harvest of growth in 2012!