Natures Passion November 15, 2009

 

Yesterday Nature was expressing herself passionately through weather around here. She was fluctuating between big hail storms and blue patches in the sky. It really was a beautiful day, and had so many magical moments to it. This picture is looking toward our neighbors house, the sun was casting such an amazing glow on everything, contrasting beautifully with that dark background. And there is our little bull calf enjoying the scenery as well.

 

 

I enjoyed getting to experience it from different perspectives. Earlier in the day I sat next to the warm woodstove and watched rain and then hail come down in sheets. Then I ventured out during a moment in between storms, getting lightly misted at times, to feed the chickens. And at the end of the day, Bernie and I went and sat under the overhang of one of our out buildings and enjoyed a show of Thunder and Lightning, accented with sheets of rain, and moments of hail.

 

 

These pictures were all taken just before Bernie and I sat down to enjoy the show. Nature sure does provide some spectacular scenery! Beauty, our draft horse took a moment to pose for me before the next storm rolled in.

 

 

To enjoy more beautiful photographs visit:

My Adventure – Part 3 – Sedona November 11, 2009

 

Now the Grand Canyon is a very magical place in its own way. I love that I got to see and experience it once again, and look forward to going back some day. But I do have to say, my favorite place on the whole trip was Sedona. Again, I had been there 7 years ago with Bernie, and loved the little bit of exploring we got to do then. It was wonderful to feel the amazing energy of this place again.

 

 

The whole area is immersed in these magic Red Rock formations. The colour in these photos is not messed with, they are really that red. Its a great experience to be surrounded by so much vibrant colour provided by nature. And look at it against those amazing clear blue skies.

 

 

We went for a couple little short walks. The wonderful thing about being immersed in the middle of these formations is you can take a very short walk, and be right next to the rocks. This walk was 1 mile each way, mostly flat. It was a good healing walk for moms cold. We got her out in the warm sunshine, enjoying some beautiful scenery (that is her in the white shirt)! The weather continued to warm as we were in Sedona, and we were able to melt the little bit of chill left over from the Grand Canyon from our bones. Being from northwest Washington, it was really nice to experience that warm dry air for a change.

 

 

There are a few energy vortexes in the Sedona area. This is a unique thing to experience, and is quite advertised in the area. We went to one that was easy to get to, and sat there just after sunset until the sky got nice and dark. I can not say that I have had a life changing experience on one of these vortexes, but I do believe that I can feel a slight difference in energy, kind of comforting and cozy. I am sure with some time spent just being in these places, one could tune into the energy more. It is an aspect I would like to explore sometime in the future. Its easy to understand why these vortexes exists here once you have been to the area. The energy of the whole valley is just different from anywhere else you have been.

 

 

Above is part of the town of Sedona. Its both lovely and sad that it snakes its way through the rocks. What a magical place for a town to be, but also a bit sad to see chain stores and mini malls right in the middle of such a view! But the beauty does attract people….. and where people go, building follows. The fun aspect of all the people in the area was watching the trick or treaters in uptown Sedona. This is the main tourist shopping area, and lots of people turned out to get treats from the businesses. We sat at a sidewalk cafe and had dinner, watching everyone walk by in their costumes. There were mostly plain costumes, cute, but not creative. But I do have to say we saw a couple unique ones. Probably the cutest of the night was a girl of about 10 or so dressed up as Barbie, but they went one step farther. They rigged up a whole box to look like the box you buy Barbie in. they had the little viewing windows, painted pink, Barbie written across it. Very cute! She walked around inside the box, lifting it up as she walked, setting it down to pose for pictures. Wish I had gotten one!

 

 

 

This was the view from our room. I was standing on the little balcony attached to our room to take this photo. It was truely peaceful. We had a little creek, Oak Creek, flowing right below the balcony also. It was so lovely to sit out there in the morning and listen to the water, and watch the sun slide across the Red Rock. Then at sunset the rocks would glow like this. Amazing!

 

 

Well, the trip was magical in many ways. And we had a beautiful time in Sedona. We got some Christmas shopping done, did some lovely little walks to see some rock formations, relaxed in the warm desert sun, and had a good time together. We packed up our belongings, quietly said our goodbyes to Sedona, promising to return in the future and started our drive back to Las Vegas to catch our plane. When we started our road trip out of Vegas we had seen a couple herds of Big Horn Sheep near Hoover Dam. There was no place to pull off to get pictures, but on our way back, after we had crossed over the dam and started to get back into the populated area of Las Vegas, we saw a herd of males next to the road, enjoying the well watered stretch of grass along the highway. We were able to safely pull off, and I snapped some shots. This guy seemed to enjoy the photography session. I have loved Big Horn Sheep since I first saw them in Yellowstone, they are quite majestic creatures.

 

Well our flight home went well. It was a bit sad to see the grey skies again, and the rain. But we enjoyed our trip, and the photos are a good inspiration for us to return to this beautiful area some day soon.

Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life March 3, 2009

 

Yesterday we went for a hike up to Pine and Cedar Lakes in the Chuckanut Mountains. I chose it for getting in shape on the hills. Its a pretty good climb up to the lakes, and it takes a bit of a direct route up the hillside. Not only am I working on getting my body in shape for hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, I am also working on my mind. I am changing beliefs that have not served me so well on the trail in the past.

I have always had a bit of a challenge with the hills, and have known for quite some time that this is mostly a mental problem. Instead of looking up a hill and dreading the climb, I am learning to embrace the hill, and enjoy the journey up it. Bernie and I were coming up with thought patterns and intentions for the climb yesterday, and over all I feel like I did quite well! I did not breath nearly as hard as I usually do when in this kind of shape. Its sometimes a bit disturbing to climb hills with me, because my face almost turns purple at times. This is one of the many symptoms I am working at getting rid of.

My body stayed pretty relaxed our entire hike up, simply by changing the way that I think. This is a very strong lesson to learn when doing any activity. The more we embrace it and enjoy it, the less of a burden and challenge it becomes to us. One example is if we are out for a walk with someone, and we come up to a long steep hill, at first we might think “oh god, I have to climb that”, so right away your body starts to feel like a lead weight, and you have to drag it up that hill. But if the person you are with gets you talking about something you are passionate about, your mind is suddenly no longer focusing on how hard that hill is. Before you know it you will be at the top of the hill, you wont be breathing hard, and you will feel great, because you were focused on something you really enjoy, not making the hill into an impossible task.

One book that I was raised with, and always go back to for perspective on the different ailments that we carry in our bodies is Louise L. Hay’s “You Can Heal Your Life”. If you have never seen this book, I highly recomend it. The funny thing is I have actually not read the book through, but there is a list in it, with all the main body parts, what they represent, and then diseases that we get. It tells you what the typical reason for these problems are, and a new thought pattern to help you overcome these problems. So I looked up shoulders, since that is one of the main problems I am solving before we leave on our hike. She said that shoulders “represent our ability to carry out experiences in life joyously. We make life a burden by our attitude”. This is very true for me, especially with hiking. I have turned it into a burden at times for myself in the past. I know that I no longer need to do this, I know I will enjoy each moment it has to share with me, even if some of them do happen to be challenging. So my new thought pattern is “I choose to allow all my experiences to be joyous and loving”.

Sometimes the hardest part of changing our thought patterns is deciding to do it. Once we make this choice, we start to flow into a healthier place, and more thought patterns will naturally change to serve us better. I still have a lot of work to do in many aspects of my life, but I feel good at this moment working through some of these thoughts and fears that have been serving me very poorly for many years now.

 

After our nice hike up through the woods we came out at Pine Lake. Both of the lakes are not all that large, but they are pretty little gems hidden in the trees. As you can see, its been pretty chilly around here lately, there is still quite a bit of ice covering the lake. The weather is warming quite quickly over the last couple of days, so I believe spring is finally on its way around here.

We spent our time exploring around both the lakes, enjoying the scenery. Bernie got to play around with is new camera, and figure out some of its settings, and how it works under different light conditions. When we were done at Cedar Lake we made our way up a side trail to a few overlooks. One of them looked down on Bellingham, and it was kind of interesting to see it from a different perspective. Its amazing how much it sprawls…… kinda sad too. And then the other viewpoint looked out across the San Juan Islands. It wasnt quite sunset, but the light was still very nice. It was a nice place to pause for a few minutes. I was not doing so well on changing my beliefs on cold, and was feeling quite chilly at this point. I was looking forward to moving again, and so we made our way down the trail.

 

 

It was a good outing over all. My body felt good, it was nice to end a 7 mile hike with many hills without feeling sore and tired. I actually felt like I do after a few weeks of being on the trail, strong and relaxed, which is exactly what I wanted to accomplish!

Clear Chilly Day January 3, 2009

 

This morning I pulled myself out of bed to another grey day, and shortly there after a bit of snow started to fall again. Ah, another day in the house staying warm, I thought to myself. But leave it up to our crazy weather lately to prove me wrong. An hour or so later blue started to break through the clouds, and before I knew it, it was almost clear out. So Bernie and I headed off for an adventure. We went to Hovander park to see what we could find as far as wildlife and scenery. Unfortunatly for Bern there wasn’t too much wildlife, but there were some nice scenery shots. And it was just so nice to get out and enjoy the sun. I am going to put up some more pictures from our outing once I get them worked on. For now, I have this one of a frozen slough/pond.

Hovander is an old homestead, and every time we go there I always spend a little bit of time reflecting on what it was like for the people that used to live there, and work the land. It’s a very beautiful farm, with this HUGE red barn (which I will post some pictures of in the next couple of days). I spend a lot of time day dreaming really….. and I love thinking about the simplicity/complexity of living off the land. There is a very large part of me that would be very content settling down on a farm and raising most of my own food. At the same time there is another large part of myself that is very grateful for the technology we use on a daily basis, and the freedom to go explore when and where I want.

For more sky shots visit:

Adak Memories December 30, 2008

Memories from our summer adventure in the Aleutian Islands have been drifting in and out of my mind the last couple of days, so I thought I would dedicate a post to them.

May 22nd 2008 Bernie and I departed from Portland Oregon on the Thomas G. Thompson research vessel. The size of this ship was impressive, and since it was my first time on open waters, I was happy to be on a substantial boat. We had a rough go the first couple of days out, unfortunately the weather was a little intense, and we were quite sea sick for a few days. Once we got our sea legs we emerged from our cabin and joined the rest of the crew, only to learn that a few of the well seasoned crew members even got sick, that made me feel a little bit better…..

After an eight day journey straight across the Pacific we landed on Adak, one of the many islands in the Aleutian chain. We picked up a crew of scientists, and headed out to the end of the Aleutian chain. We stopped at various islands along the way, most of the scientists were divers doing subtidal work. Bernie and I would walk the beaches looking for Sea Otter remains. We made it to the farthest point of the Aleutians and made our way back, stopping along the way. We had pretty wonderful weather along this journey out and back, a few days with swells here and there, but good weather in the Aleutian Islands is hard to come across some times. One day in particular was amazingly calm. The water was perfectly glassy, on the way back from a beach walk, the fog that had hung over the island all morning lifted, and I got some beautiful shots of the Thompson.

When we arrived back on Adak, Bernie and I were dropped off at our own personal retreat. Alright, retreat might not quite be the right word, but many aspects of it were spectacular. It was a small ‘cabin’ (more like shack), with a creek that did a big U turn right around it, and just a very short walk to our own private beach. We were out there doing Sea Otter research, and our main research site was about a 20min zodiac ride from our cabin. The landscape that surrounded us on our whole journey this summer was breathtaking! We really were blessed with our spot at the little cabin. Right behind the cabin the hills rose abruptly into twin mountains, to the other side rolling grassy hills spread out into a long peninsula, called Caribou peninsula. As you can guess, we had caribou around. They were introduced to Adak in the late 50’s early 60’s, for entertainment (hunting) and an emergency food source for the people stationed at the Navy base on the other side of Adak.

We lived in our little cabin located in the Bay of Islands for a bit over two months. With our zodiac we got to explore and do research on a handful of the islands nestled in our bay. Mount Moffet looked across the bay at us, when the clouds would lift long enough for us to see it. Many of our days there were cloudy, and a good percentage were rainy, but when the sun would break through we had wonderful vistas in all directions.

Every 10 to 14 days we would take our zodiac across the bay and hike over a pass to the other side of the island to take showers, wash clothes and relax for a day or two. After our time in the little cabin at Unalga Bight, we moved to the ‘base’ side of the island. We lived in the USFWS bunk house, and did research in a large lagoon. This area of the island is truly surreal. There is a full blown town that was built for the roughly 6,000 people stationed at this base. Houses, warehouses, shops, McDonalds, a bowling alley, and WAY more. In the mid 90’s the navy packed up and gave the place to the native Aleuts. Now there is a full time population around 100 to 200 people, with seasonal contractors and biologists that come throughout the summer. It really looks like a post apocalyptic scene, all these abandoned buildings everywhere. The energy of that place is very strange.

Toward the end of our stay, to add a little excitement a volcano 50 miles away decided to cascade itself out of dormancy, and erupt rather enthusiastically. The two biologists that had been working on it were rescued off Kasatochi just about 1 hour before it went off. It was amazing to me to be 50 miles away, I truly can not imagine being on it that close to its eruption. We got to spend some time with these two men, and hear their stories.

When we were done on Adak we traveled by boat the rest of the Aleutian Chain back to Homer Alaska. On the way we went right by Kasatochi to see what it looked like. It threw out so much ash that it extended the shoreline 100 meters and more in places, the whole island was covered in ash, along with some near by islands. The winds carried the ash away from Adak, so we were never hit by it except a minute dusting. It released so much sulfur that the cloud drifted out across the US and even made it to Europe.

 

 

 

 

 

Our entire summer was an amazing experience. It had its ups and downs along the way, but that’s what keeps it so interesting. I got to see some amazing scenery, and beautiful animals! So there is an extremely shortened account of our summer, I am leaving out so many wonderful details, perhaps I will elaborate more in future posts.

To see some more photo’s of our adventure, you can visit Bernie’s blog, he has a whole series of posts on our summer:

To see other peoples experiences visit: