Just pictures

I haven't been feeling very inspired lately, which explains the lack of postings! For now I will post a collection of pictures taken mostly on my cell phone over the last two months. That might kind of catch up on what has been happening in my world lately.

April 15th at the Tea Party protest. The lady in pink was suppose to be dressed like a pig. Interesting note, my computer locked up right after I wrote the words tea party. My name is going on some list with Homeland Security I suppose. I'm such a radical!

Beautiful sunset on the evening of April 15th on an evening walk. Funny that I don't remember taking a walk that night!

In May, the parking lot was torn up and repaved at my work. I thought this looked cool.

My little Benjamina ficus plant, I plan to take home with me when the job is over.
This was inside one of the buildings at University of Idaho. Lionel Hampton went to school there! I had the pleasure of seeing him perform at Disneyland with my father when I was 5 years old, although I had no idea what it meant at the time!
Shadow of me, in my tree.
My brother's sweet little sleeping kitty on my sister-in-law's lap.
Beautiful view on one of my walks after work
In May on our 16th anniversary we drove up to the top of Frazier Mountain and enjoyed this beautiful view.


Another neat looking sunset on one of my walks

Beautiful roses off the mini rose bush my Grandma gave me years ago. There were so many blossoms, the bush was bending over from the weight.
Along a river on a quick walk my husband and I took on a local bike path before going to my folks.
The reflection pool in front of the library at my new university. This was taken the day I registered for classes!


First Beach Night of the season. Someone put the tomato/cucumber salad on top of their chili dog. Can you guess who it was? Hint: it wasn't me.

My poor excuse for a dolphin picture. They were leaping out of the water like crazy, I'm just not fast enough.

The sun sets on our first beach night.

Towing the jet skis after a fun morning of skiing last Saturday!

My father's fence art on the new backyard fence

Playing, or attempting to play croquet on Father's Day.

That about sums it up for now. Just two more months until I start "real" school!
My plans for this summer are to have no plans and no expectations.

What an Adventure!?

WARNING...THIS POST IS FILLED WITH SARCASM!

Well the Disney Company is pretty smart and during the Spring they have a special called a "2fer Ticket" that allows you entrance to both Disney parks for the price of one ticket. The visits have to be on two different days, within a 30 day period. As I mentioned in a previous post, we went to Disneyland in mid-April, so exactly 30 days later we came back to go to California Adventure. None of us particularly like that park, but it's a free ticket and there are a few good features of Cal Adventure that kind of make it worth the trip? The smart part about it, is that they get you back in there "for free" so you'll spend more money on parking, food and some merchandise that isn't offered in Disneyland.
So we headed out in the late morning on a Saturday and our first adventure was hitting quite a bit of traffic. I had "fun" using my brother's hand held navigational device to try to find side streets to avoid the freeway. We did it for a few miles and now we are very familiar with all the street names of the offramps South of Disneyland.
The second adventure was to get off the freeway at the original Disneyland exit on Harbor Blvd. We tried to recreate our youth a bit. Surprisingly it still had a some of the same feel as it did years ago. This is how I remember it. We drove on all the streets around Disneyland and found an alternate parking area, which I hope we can use the next time we go.
So yeah, just over the hedge in the background is the parking lot! I was just so excited to know that one existed. The main parking structure is a little creepy. We ended up parking there anyway this time though, because we had already driven in circles around Disneyland and didn't want to take anymore time driving around.
Finally and reluctantly we made it inside the park and we saw all kinds of exciting things.

More baby ducks! I wonder how many generations have been born here?
Monterey? I lived in Monterey and sorry, there's no bridge that crosses the bay there. Maybe this is suppose to be the Bay Bridge in S.F.? There are lots of mysteries in the park like that.
The Drive-through tree or I mean walk through tree. This is a one of the nice parts of the park, with lots of trees providing shade and peace. Hopefully the redwoods will survive there.

Yellowstone ...in California? Still is pretty cool though.
Devils Postpile Monument...with a waterfall. I guess I don't need to see the real thing now.
My grandma's backyard fence? What? Seriously, my brother took this picture in the redwood area somewhere and I didn't even notice it when we walked by.
Las Vegas construction. This was so strange, they are working on a water show there, but had the construction completely exposed in most places. That is so not Disney!

Our tired feet. We are all wearing the same shoes as we did to Disneyland!


A Hollywood restroom straight from the 1930's! Wow!
A Disneyland stray cat. This is the fourth one I've seen in 3 years. Yet again, I wonder how many generations of cats have lived in the parks? Poor kitty, we kept following him so we could get a good picture.A sign outside of the Bugs Life Land. Thanks to my brother for this picture too. I thought it fitting.
All in all, I'm glad that we went. It's all about spending time together anyway, even if it's not our most favorite place...just NEXT TO our most favorite place! :(

I learned things from this last trip though that I need to remember.

1. Always get a Fast Pass for rides where people tend to be annoying in line i.e. Tower of Terror. (Or just bring a bodyguard along with you to the park.)
2. I'm getting too old for staying until (and after) the parks close and driving all the way home the same night.
3. If I do stay until the parks close and drive home the same night, then I better leave myself the entire next day to recover!
4. I need to take some more time between visits to Disneyland so I can appreciate it more and see the "magic".

My next post will have more Sunshine in it, I promise!

40 hours of driving in 4 days!

My husband and I took another whirlwind trip at the beginning of the month to check out another university. Here are "exactly"538 pictures to document the drive!

Day 1

We started out quite early on a Saturday morning and enjoyed the deserted highways. This is Hwy 395 heading towards Mammoth.
One of my favorite places, Mono Lake. We just flew right by this time though.
The little bit of Eastern Oregon we saw before the sun went down. It was a lot like Nevada really. We made it into Idaho the first night after a 15 hour drive and stayed near Boise.

Day 2
After a good nights sleep and checking out Boise, we kept going North. This is the "scenic route" on Hwy 55.
We stopped just for a second to appreciate the rushing river. I believe this is the Salmon River.
Yes, if you looked closely there are railroad tracks on the right hand side. There was a tourist train that followed the river for miles, called Big Thunder Railroad! The trains weren't running that day, but it must be so beautiful when they do.Beautiful bridge we went over. We still had a couple of hours until we got to our destination!
Our first view of Moscow. We thought that the drive through Idaho was going to take 3 hours tops, but it took us over 5 hours. We were exhausted by this point. It's slower going without an Interstate!
We took a walk around the University and downtown. Agriculture is one of the things the school is known for, obviously.

Here are some of the beautiful old buildings and grounds on campus.

Statue of Lewis, from the famed Lewis and Clark.
The symbol of University of Idaho. The giant yellow "I".

Day 3

We took another walk around town. This was taken from a street above our hotel. It had a nice view of the university.
I couldn't get enough of the tulips. They were everywhere, in front of homes, businesses, and even by the side of the road. Some yards were just full of them.
The old neighborhoods were absolutely gorgeous and so quiet and affordable. Hmmmm, maybe I should rethink where I'm going to school? haha
This is coming back into Idaho from Washington. We took a little drive around some of the areas of town we hadn't walked through. We knew we were close to the border between the two states but we had no idea that our room was only a 1/2 mile away from it! Add another state to the list of states we drove through this trip!
After an official tour of the campus, we hopped back in the car and started driving towards home. We were in town only 22 hours! We tried a different route through Idaho to see if it would save time, but it was pretty much the same. This was another quick stop by the side of the Snake River. There was a campground here and I didn't want to leave. We stayed in Winnemucca, Nevada that night after quite a wild ride!

Day 4
Back in Nevada. This was shot out the windshield of Walker Lake. I remember camping here one night years back and feeling so far away from home! This trip, I felt like we almost were home, compared to where we had been to. Although Idaho was gorgeous, I got a little thrill being back in the desert. I just love the desert for some reason!

It was a good trip and I'm really glad we got to see what the town and university was like, but it's not the best fit for me and what I want to study. I don't think we will be taking any long trips again for awhile! The next trip we do take, I hope we don't have to rush so much.