Scenery Complete

After a year the scene is finally complete! I didn't realize how much of an eye-sore the big white block was where the missing panel of my wall mural was supposed to be until after putting up the last piece of the mural this afternoon. It looks so much better! It looks complete! Although it was a challenge to place the last panel on the wall by myself, with it not turning out as great as all of the other mural panels (of course oblivious to the non-perfectionists out there), it still feels so good to have something in my life complete - even if it is just a beautiful scenery on my wall. Now I can thoroughly enjoy this beautiful God-created place completely.

Freshly Grounded

When I worked at the cannery several weeks I ago I snagged a couple cans of whole wheat grains in anticipation of my newly owned wheat grinder. Running out of bread before my Colorado trip I decided to make my own whole wheat homemade bread with freshly ground wheat instead of going to store to buy some bread. To say the least, I can hardly keep my hands off the loaf of bread. It is extremely delicious, soft, and moist!
















I have done some reading in the past about the health benefits of sprouted breads and flours verses non-sprouted grains. I have found it very interesting and would love to give homemade sprouted bread a shot. An educational challenge indeed.

Downsizing & Decluttering

I inherited the pack-rat disease from my father. It's a disease that takes up every inch of your closet, bedroom, box, storage space, and nook and cranny of the house (and anywhere else it can squeeze in). It even spreads itself abroad to different locations. My disease currently stretches from Idaho to Texas. I was finally able to take Arizona out of the picture - thanks to Julius and Adria. The great thing about this disease (if there is such a thing) is that it is pretty manageable and easy to control for the most part. It when I try to rid myself of this disease that all chaos breaks loose and it really becomes uncontrollable - things are everywhere and the piles never seem to get smaller or disappear. I guess that is why pack-rat disease is very hard to rid myself of because it's so much easier to have it!

Several weeks ago I came to the conclusion, for one reason or another, that I needed to downsize and declutter. There are a lot of things that I have that I don't need or use and could go without. I haven't managed to climb down into the crawl space and go through the many bins of things I have down there yet, but I have done a few things so far. One is selling the school books I have (that won't be bought back from BYU-Idaho) online. I haven't sold as nearly as much as I would have liked or thought I would have, but slowly but surely one by one they are disappearing off my shelf.

I just sold my Lov Sac today. :(... I have wanted a lov sac for a really long time before I was able to purchase one for my bedroom as part of my fantasy room. But desperate times call for desperate measures. I loved my Lov Sac but it's not a necessity and is something that I can do without until I have really established my roots in a home somewhere and am more financially secure. As I sit on the floor in my bedroom where its home once was I know it will be missed.


Now all I need is the motivation to go into the crawl space and sort through the things down there to see what else is sale-able or DI worthy. I will even be joining my old roommate in a garage sale in a week or two. Someone else's junk is another person's treasure!

Colorado Getaway

For an extended Memorial Day weekend I met up with my friend Stephanie in Colorado to traipse around the state as much as we could. Like most places around the United States, Colorado got dumped on with rain, which prevented us from doing several of the activities we really wanted to do. We still managed to get in quite a few fun adventures in despite the gloomy weather. Here are the highlights of the trip:

Denver, Colorado Temple
Getting to Colorado late Saturday night this was the first place we visited on Sunday after church. Because of the looming storm clouds everyday the lighting was awful for outside pictures, but we did our best to capture everything as best we could.

I forgot my water in the car and we happened to be
standing by the temple's fountain....

There were a variety of different pretty flowers landscaped around the temple. I don't know what these are called, but they were my favorite because they were in the shapes of hearts.

This is the view from the front of the Branson's vacant house where we stayed. The mountain in the distance is Pike's Peak - a well known mountain in the United States and one of the only mountains that you can drive a car to the very top at 14,000 ft. They have lots of bottled oxygen on hand. We weren't able to go to the top because of the snow Pike's Peak received.

GARDEN OF THE GODS

Effortlessly holding up a 16 ton boulder.
What you don't see is my super-woman suit under my clothes.

Stephanie sitting under the 16 ton boulder praying an earthquake won't happen.

Stephanie and I taking shelter under an overhanging rock from the rain and lightening strikes of the storm rolling over Garden of the Gods.

One of the many red rock towers that were jetting out of the earth.

A side view of what most of these red rock towers looked like. Bewildering!

Climbing up, on, and around the many crevasses we
found throughout Garden of the Gods.

Stephanie taking in the adventure and challenge of climbing the red rock.

What a view!
What a perfect and fitting name for this place.

Stephanie and I at the end of our trek around Garden of the Gods.

ANASAZI CLIFF DWELLINGS
(Mom you would have LOVED this)

View of almost all of the cliff dwellings there that were occupied up until 1984.

It was really exciting for me to visit these cliff dwellings. They have a personal meaning to me and are more than just ancient dwellings.

No, this is not a dog house but an oven for baking loaves of bread. I think up to 16 loaves could be baked at once in this oven.

This was where some of the food/cooking duties that the men had took place. There was a place in there that looked like there were several manos and matats used (a round rock and a rock slab to grind wheat and seeds). Very cool.

A Tipi (tepee) - one of my dream homes.

Stephanie playing and dancing right along with Mr. Kokepelli.

I thought this was another very interesting part of the dwellings. This is one of the back rooms that served as a garbage area. The Indians would throw their scraps that were unburnable/unusable into this room. And during the winter when the ground was too hard to bury somebody they would place the body in this room with the garbage where it become perfectly mummified because of how dry it stayed.

Sitting on the second floor of a two small-family dwelling.

A middle section of the cliff dwellings which all ran together.

CAVE OF THE WINDS

A bear near the entrance of the cave of the winds.
Just wrestling it down. No big deal.

This is the ceiling of a part in the cave. We decided to go on the Lantern Lit tour of the caves. It was really educational and interesting, but we didn't have much opportunity to take many pictures of the cave as we would have liked. The pictures we did take were our desperate attempts to capture some of them as we were on our way out of the cave.

The wall and ceiling of the cave near the entrance we came in.

Beware: I'm as fierce as a bear. Grrr.

FOX RUN PARK

Fox Run Park is a nearby park to the Branson's Colorado home. It was a pretty nice little park with lots of trails spurring off from the main one around the lake.

A little squirrel friend we met as we strolled around the park. He was quite tame.

COWS!!
(This is for you Grandma & Mom)

I spotted these cows as we passed a ranch on one of the many
country roads we were driving down. I had to stop to get pictures by them!
Cows forever and for always!

Don't worry, these cows aren't coming home anytime soon. ;o)
(Bunches and bunches, forever and ever, til the cows come home!)

The sunset on our way home the last evening we were in Colorado.

I think I went to or through Colorado when I was younger, but I don't remember it at all. I am glad that I was able to venture out and visit it again and visit the places that we did. It is a very beautiful state and makes me want to live out in the country. Hopefully next time it won't rain every day and I'll be able to go on some of the original planned adventures. But all in all, it was a fun getaway! Thanks Stephanie!

Look at more pictures from our Colorado Adventures on my Photobucket

Mesa Falls: Up Close and Personal

If you'll remember with me when I went to Mesa Falls in September of 2009 and the view of the Lower Mesa Falls was a long ways down. The Upper Falls is more up close and personal due to the boardwalk that was built, but I always left craving for more. I wanted to be closer to the falls - to be next to the Lower Falls and at the base of the Upper Falls somehow. From up high I could see a path near the Lower Falls but I never could figure out how to gain access to it or if it was even open to the public.

I learned from a friend the directions to hike down to the Lower Falls on an old dirt road beginning from the Upper Falls - Mesa Falls best kept secret. Jumping at the chance to experience Mesa Falls up close and personal my friend, Carrie and I didn't waste any time checking it out.

Before making it to the main parking lot of the Upper Mesa Falls the road forks, taking the left fork the pavement turns into gravel and then you come upon a dirt road on the left that has a closed gate blocking the road. This is the trail head. (I believe there is a wooden sign directly across the dirt road that says Lower Falls. (Tip: I parked off to the side of the road near the trail head so I didn't have to pay for parking). The hike from the Upper Falls to the Lower Falls is a 20 minute jaunt of beautiful pine and aspen tree mixture, fluttering Pink Lady butterflies, and the sound of the flowing river nearby. The end of the trail spits you out just above the Lower Mesa Falls. Let the adventures begin!

At the end of the dirt road looking down on the Lower Mesa Falls.

A little rock cove we discovered as we rocked climbed our way down to the Lower Falls. After scrambling down it looked like there was a trail already created to the lower left at the end of the dirt road. I'd recommend going that way - much easier and safer.

Carrie rejoicing after she overcame her fear of climbing halfway down this rocky route.

The rock that I am sitting on is not connected to any of the other surrounding rocks until about 15 feet down. Adrenaline surged through my body as I carefully made my way onto it. The base of the falls was about 40 feet below me.

ABSOLUTE PURE BLISS & SERENITY!
Every now and then a gut of mist from the waterfall would spray upwards and engulf me.
No words to describe it.

The view of the Lower Mesa Falls from the rock outcropping I was sitting on.

Carrie braved the scary step onto the rock outcropping and joined me.

Carrie soaking in the moment and the peaceful roar of the falls.

Another view of the Lower Falls as we followed a trail around to get even closer.

Sitting as close to the top of the falls as one could possibly sit!
Up close and personal

Looking upstream from the picture above were these mini falls. We enjoyed our lunch sitting in this area surrounded by the falls. Heaven!

After walking upstream a ways along a trail we made it back down to the riverside on a small land outcropping to enjoy the cool rushing water of the river.

We then hiked another 1 - 2 miles upstream that was almost all boulder hopping we came upon this small area of paradise. It literally felt like we were in Hawaii or somewhere like it. This three tier waterfall runoff/spring is another best kept secret of Mesa Falls. So peaceful!

Playing around in the many small waterfalls and enjoying the
cool splash of water on a warm summer's day.

Carrie taking a refreshing drink of the water. It tasted so good!

Upper Mesa Falls!!
It was somewhat difficult journey to make it here
from the Lower Mesa Falls but every step was worth being so close!
Again, no words to describe it. You have to experience it yourself.

It was tempting to try to make it closer
to the waterfall than this rock, but we didn't dare try.

We found a surprisingly easy way to make it up from the base of the Upper Mesa Falls to the boardwalk where the viewing of the top of Mesa Falls is most commonly seen. It wouldn't be that hard to go from the top down either if one wanted to hike from the
Upper Mesa Falls to the Lower Mesa Falls. ;o)

The journey down to the Lower Mesa Falls, being next to the falls, following the river, and then making it up to the Upper Mesa Falls - with a small piece of paradise along the way - was an incredible experience! I still hold previous memories of Mesa Falls with dear and close friends near to my heart; this experience just added to those memories and has made Mesa Falls an even more special and memorable place for me. I wish I could take others close to me there, but hope that either through my experience or even their own experience there they too can enjoy Mesa Falls as much as possible.

View more Mesa Falls: Up Close and Personal pictures on my Photobucket. There is even a video of the Lower Mesa Falls