Hiking @ MindSay 
camping
Had a blast hiking at Devils den and got some excellent pictures with the camera Lilli (aka omgwtf) gave me ( thanks sweetie!)
The Ecuadorian food we had at Rolandos in Ft Smith was delightful and I tried something new!
Saturday was nothing short of perfect ! The weather was beautiful and warm and the sky was bluer than blue.
We hiked about 2.5 miles up the Ozarks Highland trail which is a beautiful scenic trail that parallels Lake Ft Smith. On part of it you pass through some large boulders not far from the water. My friend heard a "hissing " coming from under one of the bluffs so we decided to take the road back when we reached the "turn around". Before we headed back we took a short rest on some rocks down by the creek. I told my friend it would be really cool if she could find a special rock to take home with her. I held my hands up and said 'Oh great universe let her find a very "special rock". Immediately I looked down and there it was. A rock in the "perfect ' ( and I do mean perfect ) shape of a heart! It was several inches thick and weighed 8lbs (I weighed it when I got home)!But we decided that we must have it for it represented our friendship which is written in stone and will last forever!
We decided to share the task of carrying the priceless treasure and passed it back and forth as we journeyed back to the truck.
We discussed lunch plans and agreed upon taking the old highway through the mountains and eating along the way at some quaint cafe . We kept an eye out for some place unusual as we drove and just north of Mount Gaylor we spotted a blue building with a sign which read "Grandmas House cafe". It sounded perfect!
We parked and went inside where we were immediately greeted by homemade cream and fruit pies and homemade rolls, corn bread and biscuits.
On the buffet table was fried chicken, meatloaf, chicken and dumplings, mashed potatoes and gravy, brown beans, green beans, sweet peas, cabbage, and fried okra... homemade, just like granny used to make!
The food was melt in your mouth fabulous and all you can eat including those big beautiful pies!
We ate till we couldn't eat another bite!
I ran into a dear old friend of mine (such a small world) who we visited with for a short spell and then we waddled out to the truck and headed to my moms to hangout for a while before going to my daughters for the "Fuck the Bastard" party I was giving for my friend. She is going through an ugly divorce with a " limp dicked, self centered, manipulative, terrorist bastard who refuses to let her go till she gives him a lot of cash or pays him alimony ( what a pussy...can't believe he calls his self a man. She on the other hand is a kind, considerate, sweet caring person ( he is nothing but a low down dirty dog gold digger asshole!)
Anyway, after hangin with mom a while , we picked up Lilli and headed to the party. My daughter and grand daughter were waiting with home made mexican food (tingas) and a chocolate cake with "fuck the bastard" written in red icing and icecream. I brought the girls and the margarita fixings!
We had the best time playing games, doing mad libs and torturing an atomically correct voodoo doll I made of her husband! We laughed and laughed and laughed some more! We laughed till we all cried and our sides were hurting!
Lilli made a cool Cd that had "respect" and "I'll survive" and other great "I'll get over you songs" on it, and gave my friend a lovely painting she had done.
This was the perfect party for my friend! She was able to let down her hair, have some fun and let off some steam. It was very liberating for her! I f you have a friend going through something like this I highly recommmend it!
We ate most of the food and drank all the alcohol ( except me who was driving) and headed home. It was a perfect ending to a perfect day!
Yesterday we hiked 4 miles at Tanyard creek along the lake and past the waterfalls and bluffs till it started raining. Then we came home and watched movies and pigged out all day on homemade BBQ, potato salad and chocolate pecan fudge cake!(we ate half a cake...it was holy shit delicious!)
Today we're headed to Devils Den State park to hike and explore some caves and crevices. If you've never been there it's a lovely place in the Boston mountains of Northwest Arkansas. It has horse trails, hiking trails and mountain bike trails. It's really beautiful and I haven't been there in 15 years so I'm really looking forward to it!
After that we're off to Fort Smith to dine with her daughter at an "Ecuadorean restaurant" then spending the night at a motel so we can get up on Saturday and head for lake Fort Smith for another day of hiking.
I told her we're supposed to be back in Fayetteville at 5pm to pick up Lilli (aka omgwtf) and go out to eat but actually I have planned a surprise party for her at my daughters.
Our party theme "Fuck the Bastard ". My friend is going through a nasty divorce and her husband is a cruel, deceiving, conniving, manipulating bastard!So we're going to eat Mexican food (tingas...yum) and drink margaritas and torture a little voodoo doll I made of him.We'll play trash the man" games, dance let our hair down and show my friend we love her, she not alone and we support her.
Good friends are hard to find, great friends come along only once or twice in a life time and are more precious than gold!She and I can talk about anything and we have never had even the tiniest
"spat".
We'll hike on Sunday and she heads back to Memphis on Monday. Then I'll anxiously await her next visit!
Hi!
The last two days of break has been great! On the first day of our trip it took around three hours to get there. And my dog puked three times on the drive there. then we dropped off my dog and went to our cabin/condo. It`s so small! There`s only two bedrooms and 2 bathrooms for 7 people! But other then that we went to main street and went shopping. I got a cool geode. Plus me and my sister found these
'read and release' books. It`s when you find a book anywhere like on a bench out side that has a sticker on it that says read and release and when you finish reading it, you just set it down somewhere and someone else will come and read it and do the same thing. We also went swimming a lot .
Friday we took the entire core (70+ kids) down 6 1/2 miles of the Monument Canyon trail in Colorado National Monument. With bus schedules dictating our day ... and a return trip to the "bus barn" after leaving the school, to trade buses as something was broken and the first bus could not make the trip up into the Monument.... we had a mere 3 1/2 hours to make the entire trek . . . a process I lovingly call the "death march". It turned out to be a great day, though... the kids were all troopers and I think most if not all of them had some fun! Here are a few being eaten by FROG ROCK! LOL!
Yesterday I grabbed a friend who was with me when we missed a cache.... ended up on a trail way above the desired location... so, looking down on it some weeks ago, we pledged to return.... Turned out to be "Mike the Headless Chicken" Days in Fruita so the area was alive... and there was a "Hike for Mike" event going on in the very same area we were headed for. We discovered that the Mike this event was dedicated to was a fellow science teacher that died while on a field trip with students - hiking to Delicate Arch a couple of years ago. The proceeds will be used to help fund the extension of our riverfront trail - hopefully from one end of the valley to the other someday! After we went and retrieved the cache... I dug in my pocket and found enough to sponsor myself in the hike... seemed like a fitting memorial and a good cause! Today I called another friend (don't want to burn out hiking buddies!).. and off we went to walk down a streambed strewn with petroglyphs (technically pictographs, I believe)... headed to the Colorado River. A little over 2 miles each way.. and such a beautiful day! The cactus are just starting to bloom. So nice
She found the first stage of this multi-cache!
The Indian Paintbrush is in bloom- this is one of the largest clumps I have ever seen!
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Above.... look deep under the overhang to see the pictographs
and the claret cup cacti are just beginning to open up... my favorite!
Prickly pear cactus blossoms and yucca blooms in background
More pictographs...
No picture of the final adventure... there was another geocache just across the road when we got back to the parking area... so I headed over to grab it. Finding it under the juniper tree was no problem.. a large cookie tin covered with rocks. I moved the camo and reached for the can when the bright pattern of yellow and black caught my eye from under the can. Three coils of a snake, about and inch in diameter, were visible - it never moved, but I was frozen in my tracks... pretty sure I wasn't brave enough to continue retrieving ... and then replacing the can. But a bit hesitant to replace the camo, also. Finally I decided it was happy where it was and would allow me to push the rocks up around the can. I'll save signing THAT log for another day!
Yesterday I went hiking with some friends--it was one of those outings that made me realize how adult I was, where I felt instead of being in a friendship, really, it was sort of a tentative agreement to go hiking with some people and try them out as friends. I could try to puzzle it out a little more for you, but I'm afraid that is as articulate as I am going to get.
It was fun, however, which is the bottom line. I was at the end of the line, being in the worst shape of the assembled parties, which is always good for the self-esteem. In my own defense, I am fighting a cold which doesn't help your ability to race up hills and trails. It was a good hike, challenging with lots of scrambling up rocks and beautiful vistas. I'm feeling it a little in my legs, but that is a desired effect of a good hike.
A few months ago my husband and I had gone on a hike in a similar area. It was not a good hike. Granted, we made several mistakes in our planning, choosing to hike in the early afternoon of a hot day in late summer, and not being very sure of where the trail actually was and walking up what had to be a goat path until we felt that we'd summited something. I am kind of ashamed to admit that I, at several points, sat down and refused to go any further. However, I admitted the previous in the interest of full disclosure. And it makes the following information make sense.
Sometimes I do not enjoy hiking while I am actually doing it. I get a little obsessive about milemarkers and a little irrational about being safe. (I'm the girl who brings a first aid kit, imagining the ranger's disapproving face when an injury inevitably happens and I have to confess that I didn't have a first aid kit). I worry that I don't really like hiking, I just do it because I want to be the type of person who likes hiking.
I was surprised at how crowded the trail was, which is my usual state of being any time I do something outdoorsy in California. In Missouri, you can be pretty sure that the State Parks are empty and they are a nice place to go to get away from people, but that is not something you can count on in California. People are out in the parks, on the trails, walking their dogs and carrying their babies across the terrain.
I am of two minds on this. On one hand, I'm like, Awesome. Great--way to go, be healthy, be outside instead of watching reality TV. On the other, majorly selfish hand, I am slightly disapointed that I have to share the park. I also am missing the moral superiority I get from being the "individual who hikes," and that being a unique thing; as opposed to being one of many people who hike.
But then I do like it. I like it because its hard, I like it for the perspective you get when you are up on top of something, and I like it because its exercise, physical activity that makes me feel good about myself and what I can do. Maybe its bad, but there is a gigantic sense of accomplishment that comes from realizing that I can do a four mile hike up and down--so if the situation were to arise where I had to hike (nuclear war, end of society as we know it, whatever) that my body can handle some of the challenges. This links to my "If I get stuck on a deserted island" thing, which I'm sure I'll cover later.
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