Summer Road Trip, pt 5

Welcome back to the vacation pics! We spent the afternoon exploring the south rim of the Grand Canyon, and it was such a wonderful afternoon. We wanted to watch the sunset, so we drove to an overlook that wasn't too crowded.


We wanted to go a bit off the beaten path, so I explored a bit while Chuck was switching batteries in the camera, and we found a path that led to a nice spot (kind of on the edge, below the paved "tourist area") with room to relax on the rocks and have a great view of both the setting sun and the colors against the far rim of the canyon.


As the sun dropped in the sky and the shadows lengthened, it brought more detail out in the canyon below. I loved being able to turn west and watch the colors in the pink and orange sky, and then turn east and see the waning sunlight paint the canyon with pinks and orange as well.


This was an unforgettable evening.







After sunset we headed back to the hotel. There was a forest fire nearby (it had been set by lightning several days earlier and the Forest Service was letting it burn itself out, controlling the direction of the burn) so the little town was smoked out, you could barely see across the street. We had intended on walking around, picking a restaurant for dinner and shopping, etc. Instead, we ate at an Italian restaurant (cutely named "Spaghetti Western"!) and then headed for the hotel and clean air.

Luckily, the smoke wasn't affecting the views at the canyon, so it was more of an inconvenience

Next up- we travel north to Utah and visit several more National Parks. Stay tuned!

Summer Road Trip, pt 4

Welcome back to the road trip series. Sorry for the short delay in posting, I had the flu last week and wasn't feeling up to anything but sleep (and re-reading the entire Twilight series in 4 days, but that's an entirely different subject!). I'm feeling much better, and ready to share more pictures with you.

After a fun weekend in Havasu, Chukani headed for Phoenix to spend an evening with our friend Donna's parents. We needed to pick up a toddler bed for Bill and Donna, and her parents offered to host us for the evening, so it was win-win all the way around.

What a fun time we had hanging out over there! Chukani went for a long swim in their pool after Joy made us a delicious lasagna dinner that evening, and Dan-Dad even served us a yummy breakfast the next morning before sending us on our way.

As we traveled back across Arizona and then up to the Grand Canyon the next day, we experienced the stark desert beauty that Arizona has to offer. The Saguaro cactus are amazing. We drove through a whole forest of them one afternoon.


And you get a real sense of how far in the distance you can see with no mountains in the way... the pic above with the gorgeous thunderhead cloud developing looks deceivingly close. But when you can see for 50+ miles, everything looked closer.

We visited Montezuma's Castle and enjoyed the trail around the monument as a chance to stretch our legs. The cliff dwelling ruins were great, the trail takes you right up to them.

And the first of many self-photos. This became a tradition over the week's adventures. In every National Park, we had to take at least one of these photos with some cool scene behind us. Silly, I know.



We left the monument and drove through Sedona on our way to the Canyon. I wish we had been able to spend more time in the Sedona area, it was breathtakingly beautiful. We took a Forest Ranger's advice and drove up to the Airport overlook for wonderful views of the city and red rocks.


The sky was so blue against the magenta-red of the sand sculptures.


Our destination that afternoon was the Grand Canyon... my first visit! We stopped in at our hotel to check-in, and then headed for the south rim to catch sunset on the canyon's edge. It was amazing... cooler temps at the higher altitude, and the view was perfect. Words cannot describe the Grand Canyon, pictures cannot truly capture the immensity and beauty. You just have to go see it for yourself! But don't worry- we took lots of pictures, so we'll share some with you anyway.

Chuck's Aunts and Uncles have a long-standing tradition of calling each other from crazy places and saying... "guess where I am?" Here's Chuck calling his Aunt Nancy to include her in the fun.


There was a rainstorm travelling across the canyon, this is looking towards the distant north-eastern rim.





See... here's another self-pic. We made good use of Chuck's long arms to capture the photos. :)

I have another post set to go later this week, so stay tuned for more pictures of the Canyon.
Thanks for visiting!

Summer Road Trip, pt 3

After driving across the lovely (and HOT) state of Arizona, we finally made it to our weekend destination- My Aunt & Uncle's house in Lake Havasu.

There we got to meet my cousin Jason and Lori's newest addition to the family, baby Luke. He is so precious!


My parents were in town (from Cali) and my brother and his family too. My grandpa Mac hung out with us, along with my Aunt Phyllis and her family. It became an impromptu Mansfield Family reunion.

I don't have as big of a family as on Chuck's side- that's for sure. I think there was only 22 of us at the most. (Chuck has like 30 first cousins or something like that.) We were missing my Aunt Cindy and her family, so it wasn't quite the whole gang. But what we lack for in numbers, we make up for in fun! :)

We all gathered at my Aunt Sharon and Uncle Dave's house. Lots of bbq's, hanging out, catching up and reminiscing about the old days. The little cousins all had fun playing together too, which was great to see.

This pic is my Grandpa, Uncle Dave, Aunt Phyllis, her kids Sean and Katie, and her hubby, my Uncle Dan. I think this is after the great "Quillo" debate, lol!



We got some nice group photos- below is my parents, bro and sis-in-law, niece and nephew and Chukani, with Grandpa Mac in the middle.



I was kinda worried vacationing in Arizona Mid-August. Hot doesn't begin to describe the desert heat out there, especially late summer! But the weekend we were in town it rained nearly every day, so the blistering heat was held at bay, much to my delight.

That's not to say it wasn't HOT, mind you! :) Here's a great pic of Todd and Randi hanging out in the dining room. Coolest spot in the house- right under the a/c vent. This was prime seating!



That evening after dinner we all sat outside on the patio and watched the sunset. You can't see the lake in this shot for the housetops, but it's out there, and the mountains on the other side are actually California.

I think I took more sunset photos this trip than ever before. Every single night was different, and each sunset better than the one before.


goodbye, sun.



Typical summer evening in Havasu- twilight, and still above 90 degrees. It was, however under the century mark, so we decided it was "cool enough" to go for a walk.

My little niece Shae got tired pretty quickly, so I volunteered Uncle Chuck to give her a piggy back ride. Oh so cute!



The next day we decided to go out on the river in Jason's pontoon boat. We toured around a bit, then found a nice beach to hang out and swim for a while.



Hanging out at the river brought back tons of memories for me. When I was growing up, our families spent nearly every summer camping at the river for weeks on end. I remember wading in an inner tube for most of the day, even sleeping in the boat at night. I loved camping at the river.

We'd all get up really early to water ski when the water was smooth and still, like glass. In the cool of the morning, it was amazing to be out there. I was flag-girl the times I didn't ski, I really used any excuse to be in the ski boats. I'd sit up in the bow with the wind in my face for hours. Great memories.



After a while, we packed it up and headed back for the marina. Jason took us on the scenic tour, and the little ones had a blast watching all the speed boats zoom past us in our leisurely pontoon.



Havasu is famous for its London Bridge, so we had to be real tourists and boat underneath it. There are lots of shops and restaurants in the area, but I've been to them all zillions of times, so we skipped that tourist destination this time.


Later that evening, another storm rolled into town.





It was amazing to watch the storm develop. And that's just what we did- we all sat out on the patio and watched the storm move closer. You'd think none of us had ever seen rain before, it was pretty funny.



We finally got some rain, and the cooler, humid evening to follow. The sunset that night was particularly gorgeous with the clouds and glowing colors.



Ok, next up- Chukani head for Phoenix, and then the Grand Canyon. Part 4 in a few days.

Summer Road Trip, pt 2

Welcome back to the Road Trip series... After we left the petroglyphs and Albuquerque, Chuck and I drove across Arizona. The road was long, but not so winding, as you can see by this photo:

We made a few stops along the way, the best one was our visit to the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert. It was a beautiful day for sightseeing... even though it got hotter and hotter as the afternoon progressed. Thank goodness Chuck had loaded an ice-chest with water and gatorade for us, we definitely needed to stay hydrated walking around in that heat. Phew!

Once in the park, we came to the Painted Desert first, and we walked along several easy trails. Amazing colors... it was true to the name. I love this shot with the blue sky and green scrub brushes framing the reds and violets of the canyon below.

We had a picnic lunch from eats in the cooler, (yes, we ate in the truck with the a/c on. It was over 100 degrees out!) and then drove along to the Petrified Forest.

Along the way there were some nice vistas and geography... these are some of the "teepees" that eroded eons ago.

It was eerily quiet and still out there. We were practically the only living things moving around in the heat of the afternoon. And the landscape seemed almost alien after a while. So incredibly different from the forests I'm used to in the Colorado mountains.

The petrified logs dotting the landscape were very cool. Until you walk right up to one and inspect it, it looks completely like an old, fallen tree trunk. And then as you get close, you all of a sudden realize that it's actually a big 'ol rock now. Completely mineralized. Fascinating.

After our side tours, we headed west, eventually meeting the setting sun.

After sunset, we finally made it to Lake Havasu City, to spend a fun weekend with nearly my entire family.

Ok, that's it for now... Stay tuned for part 3, the Mansfield Family Reunion.

Summer Road Trip, pt 1

I've been meaning to post some pictures from the road trip vacation Chukani took back in August... but honestly we took so many pictures it's been an overwhelming task. So how about a string of posts with stories and photos?

We took 11 days late August to go visit my side of the family in Arizona. We drove through New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, coming back across Colorado. It was a wonderful vacation, great to see family, and fun traveling through so many beautiful places.

The first day we drove south through Colorado and into New Mexico. My friend Jen lives in Albuquerque and offered to let us stay the night.




In front of Jen's house she had some huge flowering bushes, and the bees were busy at work all afternoon.


Jen's house is on the outskirts of town, in a quiet neighborhood of newer developments... with an amazing view of the setting sun. In the opposite direction, the lights from the city were a wonderful backdrop to the evening sky, as we hung out in her back yard for a bit.

The next morning we went to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center to have breakfast. Unfortunately, the address on their website was missing a digit, so it took us about an hour to find the center! We drove around Albuquerque for awhile until Jen made a few phone calls and solved the conundrum of why Chuck's GPS was leading us through residential neighborhoods.

The center is a museum, theatre, restaurant and gathering place for Native Americans from all over the region. And the restaurant served delicious New Mexican food, it was worth the extra long trip to find it.

After breakfast, Chukani headed out of town, stopping at the first of MANY visits to National Parks and Monuments. In fact, we dubbed our road trip "National Park-a-palooza" and counted up nearly a dozen parks by the time we made it back to Colorado!

We took a few light trails around the park and got to see the petroglyphs up close... amazing to think how many centuries these markings have been on the basalt rocks.


The remainder of the day was spent driving through New Mexico and onto Arizona. I'll save that for the next post... check back for more in a few days.

Palisade Peaches

I bought a case of peaches last month, from the West Slope of the Colorado Rockies in a little town called Palisade. Around these parts, peaches from Palisade have quite a good reputation for being juicy and oh-so-delicious.

That same weekend, I made a batch of peach jam (you see those cooling off in the foreground) and 12 quarts of peach halves in light syrup. I really enjoy canning and preserving the harvest, a skill my mother-in-law taught me. She learned from her mom, so it's in honor of Grandma Mary Keller that I used her tools to put up another year's worth of peaches... something she did every summer.

I've also canned tomatoes from my garden, and even made concord grape jelly last fall. (and I heard through the grapevine (pun intended!) that I might be getting another box of grapes in the next week or two. )

In the dead of winter, when the snow is blowing and everything is bleak and dark... it is such a JOY to bring up a jar of peaches from the basement. It's summer all over again- the sweet aroma of peaches fills your nose and you taste pure sunshine in every peachy bite.

Nothing beats hot, fresh from the oven peach cobbler in January, right? I'm looking forward to it.

Early Autumn at the Cabin

Chukani left for the cabin last Thursday night, to spend a few days up there for my birthday. The weather was cool and we enjoyed the warmth of the crackling fireplace in the evenings.

We also took advantage of the the clear skies and new moon at night for some good star-gazing. The milky-way was so bright and sparkly! With a couple lawn chairs and blankets out in the front meadow, and all the lights off in the cabin it was a prime shooting-star viewpoint.

As you can see in these pics, the Aspens are in the process of turning from bright green to that beautifully glowing gold. We took an early morning walk with Keena and enjoyed the sunrise among the changing leaves. It was a very nice Birthday I have to say.

Notice the mountainside in the background, and you can see the patchwork of light green, gold and dark green as the trees welcome autumn.

We are expecting SNOW in the Denver metro area this week. Seriously!! If it happens, I'll definitely have my camera handy...

2009 Harvest

Today I decided to see what the garden had been working so hard on all season.

We only got one pumpkin, the darn squirrels (or a skunk?) got to the other 2 and ate them right off the vine a couple months ago. The carrots were a surprise- I'd forgotton how many seeds we had planted. Somehow I thought it was just a couple squares' worth.

The potatoes were so much fun to dig up! They didn't get very big, but for the first time ever growing spuds I am delighted. Can hardly wait to see how they taste. yum.

I went ahead and picked all the tomatoes since the weather folks have been threatening snow sometime soon. (gasp! snow??) Only a few greenies left, and the rest will ripen pretty quickly I'll bet.

And the beets! yeah for beets. I am planning to can these tonight (or maybe in a couple days if I run short on time...) into pickled beets. This will be a new one for me, I've never tried to can beets before. wish me luck!

Gardening is a joy

Our vegetable and flower gardens are in full swing, and I've been meaning to share some photos. So here we go!

I was up early and decided to grab the camera to take with me as I walked around the yard. I really like the early morning sunlight on the plants, it makes the colors glow and everything is so fresh and crisp.

This is the new flower bed we made this spring. There was a triangle-shaped portion of space that was covered in mulch and then had large pots of flowers in it every year. We tore it all out, reshaped the bed and laid sod (the part on the left) so that there is more space walking from one area of the back yard to the other.

The new flower bed is smaller, but this way the plants are in the ground, and we used a lot of perennials, with some annual color as well. I'm really happy with how the flower bed turned out!



This is a campanula that just started blooming, one of my favorite flowers. It's right next to my lavender plant that is blooming as well, making a nice blue contrast to all the pink and red going on in front of the bed with the dianthus, nicotiana, and petunias.



We also planted 3 lilac bushes, 2 hydrangeas, and there are about 4 rose bushes that were transplanted from the front yard over the last few years. We jokingly call it the rose-graveyard, because if a rose plant isn't performing well out front Pat wants to move it to the back yard and get something new and pretty for the rose planters out front. But then eventually the roses settle in out back and do very well, none of them have died as we had expected, in fact the two that have been in the "graveyard" the longest are blooming like crazy right now!

Here's a planter Pat has over on her side of the backyard, I just love the hot pink and dark purple colors together. The geranium has nicely variegated leaves which shows well with all the bright colors of the flowers.



Ahhh... the veggie garden. My pride and joy! :)

Everything is growing very well so far this year. There's also another planter along the back fence that Chuck has several rows of corn growing, next to it are a bunch of sunflowers and hollyhocks. They were still in shadow so I didn't snap a photo... I'll post something once they've grown up a bit more. The sunflowers are the really tall 6 to 7 foot variety, so they'll peek their flowers over the top of the fence, should be really pretty by late summer.



We use the square-foot gardening method and I've been really happy with it. I like the tidy look of the garden, and it's kind of amazing how many plants you can get into the boxes, since we don't need a whole row of pumpkins or beets, just a few sections of the garden is plenty.

Below is the box that holds two pumpkin plants, a mini one, and a regular jack-o-lantern one. In the middle are Leeks growing from seed, but they're still too tiny to see well in the photo. I noticed the big pumpkin plant already has some buds on it, so we should see little baby pumpkins in another few weeks. yeah!



Next is the tomato box, 4 heirloom tomatoes, two red, a yellow and a Cherokee purple. yum yum yum. Last fall Pat and I were able to can the last of the harvest, and I'm hoping to have enough this year again.

I plant marigolds in the garden because they have a scent that the bad insects don't care for, so they stay away from the veggies. I also think the blossoms are good for attracting bees, which I need to get everything pollinated. My garden would be nothing without the precious bees in the area.



There are several green 'matoes on the vine, I'll have to keep a close watch on them. I am so excited for homegrown tomatoes, they taste so much better than the ones in the grocery store!



This box holds some cucumber plants and celery plants. I also have a jalapeno and anaheim chili plant in the middle. They are doing well, I noticed some peppers looking nearly ready to harvest!





And there are little itty-bitty- cucumbers too- right behind the little yellow flower is the baby cucumber. so cute!



We are growing broccoli this year, a new plant for me. I only got four seedlings, because I didn't know if they would grow well, but they seem to be doing fine. In this box there are more marigolds, cilantro (that's already going to seed) and lettuce.

In the right lower corner is a zucchini plant... hello chocolate-zucchini cake!



This planter is my herb-garden. Anise, fennel, sage, lavender, basil, mint, cilantro, oregano... you get the idea. There is also a yellow crook-neck squash plant in the lower left corner, because I had nowhere else to put it. You have to be careful not to plant your squashes and cucumbers too close together, or they will get cross-pollinated while the bees are buzzing about from plant to plant, and you'll end up with weird veggies!!



Chukani decided to plant Potatoes this year too. (it was an adventure at the garden center for sure!) The back of this planter is the dozen or so potato plants, and then the rest is filled with beets, carrots, and radishes.



In fact, the radishes are ready! So I harvested those this morning. I also made a discovery- our dog Keena loves to eat radishes. I gave her one, and she happily crunched away, so I gave her another just to be sure. Yep, she thinks they taste delicious.



Well, thanks for touring the garden with me. I have some pics from the flower beds in the front yard, but I'll share them next time.