Marfa, TX

 Pictured above is an outdoor shower at El Cosmico. I was almost too disappointed to use it. But I did and accidentally used all the hot water so Phil had a cold outdoor shower. Sorry! 

 Our safari tent at El Cosmico. I was happy to move into a bigger tent for the night.

 We spent most of our Saturday on a tour of the Chinati Foundation. Parts of the tour are pictured below. I wish we would have had our camera with us the whole tour, but we were told cameras weren't allowed. And then our guide let the other tourers take photos the whole time. Let me just say it was an awesome exhibit. I highly recommend checking it out next time you pass through Marfa. Or make a trip to Marfa just to experience it.

After seeing a lot of Donald Judd's works we moved to a different building which house the works of John Chamberlain. I loved this space. I want to play a recital here someday.

Lunch break at Food Shark. The marfafalafels were to die for. 

These old POW work spaces are now permanently filled with Donald Judd's works. Loved the interiors. 

Exploring the cement works of Judd

Most delicious pizza and watermelon-lime freeze of my life at the...

 Pizza Foundation!

Drove to the McDonald Observatory for some...

observing through these telescopes. Stupid clouds made it hard to see anything but the moon. 

Phil packing up the tent for the final time. Good bye spring break 2013!

Spring break 2013. Big Bend National Park.

 Drive 8 boring miles west of Dallas and you will find Big Bend National Park.

We camped here for 3 nights. Hiked a total of 27 miles. And ate way too much junk food.

 Phil is a stud and cooked every meal to give me a break from cooking. Sometimes people call him Chef Phil. Here he is making quesadillas at our first campsite.

 Here is an awesome desert plant.

 See the blue car? That is where our first campsite was. So isolated. It was deafening quiet out there and we never saw another soul. Just heard the sounds of an owl at night. 

 Our first full day started with a hike to the Boquillas Canyon. There were some really cool plants down by the Rio Grande. I especially loved this yellow flowering tree. 

 Us and the Rio Grande. Not so grande by the time it goes through Big Bend. 

 Then we hiked the lost mine trail which was a grueling 3.5 miles to this view.

 Our last hike of the day was Santa Elena Canyon. Then we cooked up some chili and tried not to attract the javelinas.

 An example of light painting. I was inside the tent twirling around my head lamp and Photographer Phil set the camera to have a long shutter speed. 

Big Bend sunrise. I will take the photo cred for this one. 

 Day 2 began with a hike to Cattail falls. It was a hot hike to a cooler canyon. The falls weren't really falling that day.

 Then we hiked 7 miles on the south rim trail. As the world-class hiker and author Lawrence Parent put it, "The South Rim Trail is probably the classic hike of Texas. Although the trip is fairly strenuous, almost any Texas hiker worth his salt will someday try to hike to the South Rim." We found this view 2 minutes away from our campsite. We cooked dinner here and enjoyed the sunset.

 Me in the tree.

 Phil pondering the Chisos mountains and being a stud again by carrying almost all the gear (the doc told me I shouldn't put a backpack strap around my waist because of baby). After we summited Emery Peak and hiked back to relative civilization we left Big Bend and went on to the next adventure.

Along the highway to Marfa (FM 147 River Road) we found this gem of a picnic area. There are picnic tables under those teepees. 

To the left: Mexico. Center: Phil. Center back: Rio Grande. Right: USA 

The prickly pears were all abloom and beautiful. 

Next stop and next blog post: Marfa, TX.

If you can't stand the suspense apparently they just featured it on 60 minutes. 

My last backpacking trip of the summer. Naturalists Basin.

I took a picture like this last year before we went backpacking in the Uintas so we decided to make it a tradition. I love the wilderness. In small doses. This was the last backpacking trip of the summer for the combination of Phil and Briana (Phil went on at least one more).

When we neared our campsite we saw fish jumping out of this river and we decided to try to catch them.

It is hard to tell from this picture, but this fish is huge. My hands just got in the way of it's massive body.

It is beautiful in the Uintas.

Cooking dinner as the same time as being dinner for the swarms of mosquitoes. You should have seen us eating dinner. The mosquitoes were so numerous and insane that we couldn't stand still and you had to make sure you weren't eating any when you took a bite of food. Delightful creatures.

After a rough night of sleep (the moon was full and incredibly bright) we decided to take a hike around Naturalists Basin. Every lake in the basin was named for a naturalist. This waterfall was so gorgeous.

These are the lakes that we slept by the night before.

basin lake

another lake in the basin. What a beautiful part of the world. I am glad Phil is so adventurous. I probably say that a lot. But it is true. He shows me so many new places that I would never go to on my own. Hiking is his passion and I think that is awesome. I walk into the room where I expect to find him studying chemistry but I find him with a huge map on his lap. And I laugh but deep down I just find it so cute.

We were so exhausted on the way home (we hiked about 10 miles that day). We stopped for a little refueling...

at this awesome restaurant. The burger that Phil ordered was the bomb.

Hiking to Lake Blanche

So a few Fridays ago we realized that we both had the next day free and made a last minute decision to hike to Lake Blanche, located in Big Cottonwood Canyon. The hike was pretty grueling in the heat of late July and I was feeling sick when we got to the top, but the views were definitely worth every step. Pictured above are the wildflowers, which were the most beautiful we had seen all summer.

This is Phil. The mountain behind him is called sundial peak. So we thought it would be funny to have Phil check his watch with sundial peak behind him. Tee hee.

How incredible is this view?

We finally ran into someone else up there so we could get a picture of both of us! Thanks random guy!

Lake Blanche and Sundial Peak

Aspen trees will always remind me of summer

Here is a photo from the hike taken with my lomography camera. It was supposed to be two separate square photos, but the film isn't winding correctly and the result was this.

I never want summer to end

Our trip to Yosemite

About a month ago we road-tripped to California. Here is all the stuff we brought.

We stopped in Vegas to visit the Rabes

This was the view from our first campsite right outside of Yosemite.

After entering the park and waiting in line for a couple hours to get our back-country permit and setting up at the backpackers campground we visited a few sites within the valley. This one is Mirror Lake.

This is Yosemite Falls

Our tent could be a model. Isn't it good looking?

The beginning of our back-country adventure aka our hike to Little Yosemite Valley. The next 4 pictures are from the hike to our camp site.

The Merced River was raging

Phil may have had a heavier backpack...
He is so nice.

Behind us is the infamous half dome

Looking down Nevada Falls. There were rainbows everywhere.

After we made it to the site we claimed a spot and set up camp. It was only 4 pm so we thought we would do some more exploring. About 3 minutes in to the exploring I heard a rattle snake and then spotted it right by the trail. It gave us a good scare. Then we saw another one about 10 feet ahead so we decided to explore in the other direction.

In the other direction we found this beautiful meadow. I was still a bit frightened from the rattle snakes so I asked Phil if we could go back to the camp. So we turned around and started singing "the bear in tennis shoes" song to try to keep my spirits high. We stopped singing when we heard a rustling sound in front of us. I freaked out when I spotted a baby brown bear climbing a tree about 30 yards ahead. The mom was staring us down. We busted out of there. I am glad the bear climbed the tree or else we probably would have walked right into them. And I am glad I was with Phil who knew what to do.

That night the rangers were shooting rubber pellets at bears entering the campground.

I hate bears.

Another view of the river on our hike back.

We came back on the mist trail where we hiked right by Nevada Falls. And we got soaked.

That evening (after a shower!!!) we went to Glacier Point to see the sun set. It was a long drive but the view was so worth it. Yosemite is majestic.

I heart half dome

After another night at the backpackers camp and another night of waking up to bears being shot at we hiked up to the top of Yosemite Falls. It was a hard 7 mile hike and the sun was hot. Here is a picture of us at the top.

Crazy trail

Yosemite
beautiful water
breath taking rock formations
streaming light
and the best part:
experiencing it all with my best friend

ok I really want to go back