Where In The World?

I have been on a much needed vacation with my sweet husband in one of the most beautiful places on God's great earth.  We just returned home this evening and I couldn't resist starting to edit pics.

Can you guess where we went?

Bonus points if you can tell me where EXACTLY this is in this great place we vacationed. :)

Leave me a comment and your guess and I will draw a name on Sunday for a fun little bit of crafty goodness from my stash. :)

~Inky Smiles!

Getting Back In The Saddle / Swing of Things / Craft Room Again

Hey friends!

Just a quick note to let you know that I have not died or dropped off the planet. We just got back this morning (3:30 am) from a fabulous 11 day east coast vacation to see the foliage changing in upper New Hampshire, Vermont, playing in the Boston area, visiting my extended family in western Massachusetts and celebrating my grandfather’s 80th birthday. It was SO MUCH FUN and I am SO STINKING tired. COMPLETELY filled a 2 gig camera card and started on a 1 gig… Gotta make some time to organize and edit photos this week! :)

I did get to meet a really neat lady on the plane. She was sitting behind me talking to a darling little old lady who was seated next to her… I was trying to get comfortable with a pinched nerve in my hip (and teeeeeny tiny seat) and caught the word “scrapbooking” and “work from home”in their conversation and after a little while I couldn’t stand wondering what company she was talking about, so I was nosey and turned around to talk to her. lol! Turns out she’s is Brandy Murry from ScrapGirls.com!! How awesome is that! She was on her way to the Scrap Girls convention in Salt Lake City. I thought that was pretty neat and I am totally digging her products!

Also, I did make a plethora of cards and crafty things to take along on our trip. I will share them later this week.. in the meantime it’s back to work and all the fun cleaning up, unpacking, and laundry that comes when you return from a very long trip. Here's a little bitty I made for one of my aunts.

Inky Smiles :)

Erin

On The Road Again….

.......I just can't wait to get on the road again..... da da da daaaa daaa... something, something... I can't remember the words, but I just can't wait to get on the road again.......

I'm checking out for about a week.

(In order to be fair, I must admit that I am 99.9 100% sure that the sign has been poorly altered. See the seam? LOL!!)

We're headed to Iowa today to visit my parents, sibs, nieces, and nephews... Yah, I'm the "lone wolf", the "black sheep" who moved to Utah for school, and STAYED here.

I love Iowa… it’s choc full of cornfields, rivers, and open spaces…. as far as the eye can see. That’s the problem… as far as the eye can see. Is there something that is opposite of claustrophobic? If so, that applies to me and Iowa.

There is no end to what you see… it just goes on and on and on… (which might be ok for some folks, but I like my mountains…)

The other problem is the summer humidity. Too bad I can’t show you a photo of that. If you’ve never experienced that kind of humidity… imagine a steam sauna and no breeze…. and then add the ‘squitos… ick. In the thick of it all you may as well not bother drying off after a shower, just pull your clean clothes on and head out. And hair? HA!

I do enjoy going to Iowa to visit my folks… but I like to do it in May/early June and in the fall. Iowa is absolutely gorgeous… (Don’t get me wrong, I love Iowa, too, I just don’t think I could live there full time…. :P) There’s all kinds of neat places to go see & do: The Living History Farms, The Iowa State Fair (awesome!!), JOhn Wayne’s Birthplace, The Bridges of Madison County (ok, kinda boring), LOADS of lakes, The Amana Colonies… all sorts of neat things… and then there’s the shopping. My ‘rents live smack in the middle several cities meeting each other… and literally across the street from GOBS OF SHOPPING. And then there’s that way stinkin’ delicious CORN.. Nothing beats good Iowa sweet corn!

And they have a beautiful State Capitol building.

But then there’s Utah.

I love Utah.

I love the mountains, the lakes, the forests, the deserts. We live smack in the middle of a mountain desert area. I can drive 5 hours to Las Vegas (for the shows and rides), 6 hours to Yellowstone, 2 hours to Zion National Park, 4 hours to Arches National Park, 6 hours to the Grand Canyon, 8 hours to Denver, 8 hours to California (10 to Disneyland), etc, etc, etc. And if I could ski…… 40 minutes away from world class ski resorts….. we have the BEST SNOW ON EARTH.

I literally live at the base of the mountains. The views here are amazing. The mountains behind my home and to the south of us are incredible. We can drive 5 minutes to the mouth of the canyon for a gorgeous mountain canyon drive (Payson Canyon, Nebo Loop)….

Gotta stop at the Daley Freez first to pick up the world’s best Lime Freezes…..

Mmmmm.

I will spare you winter photos… I’m finally warming up and I am so stoked for summer!

So enjoy your week/weekend. I might pop online with a couple of photos of having fun with family…. I’m praying for decent weather…. you know, no tornados or other maladies…. lol! (Not quite tornado season, but you never know… )

Inky Smiles!

Erin

(edited):

PS.. I am not from IA... grew up an Army Brat... Dad retired from El Paso, TX and IA was just where he was when he retired from his last civilian job. Also, non of the pics were taken by me. I snagged them from the web (google images) this am when posting.

PPS... We have a beautiful (and newly remodeled & nestled up high on a mountain side) state capitol, too!

Hey Baby, Let's Go To Vegas

I am apologizing in advance for not putting up a lot of art this week. On Wednesday, Brent and I are driving down to Las Vegas to meet up with my aunt and uncle who are coming out from Virginia to "see the west". I am very excited to see them. Saw uncle Steve a couple of years ago at a family reunion in Massachusetts, but I haven't seen my aunt Lisa in probably 20 years or so. We're going to hit Zion Nat'l Park (UT) and Valley of Fire (NV), check out some of the fun night things on the strip in Vegas and enjoy each other's company. I will be sure to post some pics when I get back!

Since I will be nowhere near my computer, I have a guest blogger for Thursday, complete with a prize winnin' challenge... Stay tuned!

Inky Smiles!

Erin

California Adventure 2007

Well friends, I am back from Tahoe. Can I just say that my vacation (combined with Brent's business trip for city council) was an ADVENTURE!!!

We were SUPPOSED to drive to Bridgeport, CA (tiny podunk town), stay one night, and then drive through Yosemite the next day on our way to see Terri Howard. Wellll...... we had a little car trouble (little meaning - the quick connect for one of the hoses completely blew out) and nowhere was open because it was Sunday. The one garage in town was closed and the hotel guy had seen the tow truck guy hauling lumber out of town earlier. What luck.

To make a really long story short, we prayed and prayed for guidance in what to do to get somewhere where we could get the problem fixed. We spent the day trying to make phone calls, calling the insurance company, and trying to find somewhere to get the car fixed. There was no way were we driving anywhere. Late in the day we wandered back into the Sweetwater Trading Post gift shop to blow some time... well B had said somethign to the lady who owned/ran the place and she asked us when we went in again if we'd solved the problem..... turns out her DH was a mechanic at one point, she called him up, he came over, made a temporary part to plug up where the hose blew out of, and clamped down the hose and sent us on our way. (We'd brought a few tools with us and had some medical tape in the first aid kit. ) YAY!!! The kindness of strangers sure is something else. This man, John, didn't know us, but was willing to help us get on our way and refused payment for his help. I am grateful that he was the answer to our prayers. Later in the week, we drove down to Gardnerville, NV and had Terri's friends DH make a permanent repair. We went straight up to Lake Tahoe and I didn't get to go see Terri. I'm going to have to plan another trip to the Sacramento area and go see her.

Lake Tahoe was TONS of fun! The weather was fabulous, high 70's and low 80's all week with nights in the 40's-50's. PERFECT for me. Brent enjoyed his conference and I enjoyed the spouse activities. I got to make 2 candles at the Waxen Moon... totally fun!!! We went on a cruise on the lake and had a fabulous dinner at High Camp (2,000 ft above the Village). I survived the cable car ride, too... lol! 2,000 feet ascent in 8 minutes. It was soooo much fun! I can not wait to go back. Here are a few pics from the fun part of our trip......

I like Big Buttes

Moab was an ABSOLUTE BLAST!!!!!

I can not wait to go back again! I'd been to Moab before and toured Arches, but I missed the other cool stuff in the area! We drove down on Thursday night after dropping the furrkid off at Brent's cousin's house. (Their kids were UBER excited to have Sadie come stay with them.) We took the little red card to save on gas and parked the Tahoe. (Smart choice - left $$ for souvenirs!)

We slept in on Friday and then spent the rest of the day exploring the area around Moab. We went to Canyonlands National Park and Deadhorse POinte State Park. We decided to skip Arches because we'd each already been there and wanted to do new things on this trip.

The area around Moab is absolutely beautiful. It's desert and "barren", but it is it's own kind of beautiful. We spent some time hiking and GeoCaching along the way. We stopped at GeoCaches along the highway and in the parks. Brent downloaded all of the ones in the area to his GPS unit. I've never been a fan of "southwestern" decor and plants, but we saw some really interesting and pretty cool plants this trip.

















Here's B getting into a Cache on the way to Deadhorse Pointe.

He had so much fun with his GPS unit. I probably could have sent him and Mr.GPS on their own little trip! :) We did the 2.2 level caches so that I'd be able to handle the terrain with my goofy knee. GeoCaching is getting addicting!






Here we are at a "virtual Cache" near Deadhorse Pointe. My sweet B is always trying to sneak in a smooch! We set the camera on the tripod, set the timer, and voila!

Deadhorse Pointe
It was a bit hazy, but still absolutely breathtaking! Yes, I DID peer over the edge to snap the photo without having a panic attack! We are actually standing ON Deadhorse Pointe looking at Big Bend (the bend in the river) I always thought that DHP was that point sticking out into Big Bend... nope!!

The rock formations were sooooo neat! The Moab area is a Geologist's treasure trove! I was particularly fond of these neat swirls in the rocks. There were different patterns and designs all over the place. I had so much fun snapping pics of everything!










This is a shot from up on DHP looking toward the La Salle mountains. It was quite an odd feeling to be roasting to death in the desert (oK, it was the mid 90's or so... not THAT bad) and then look over and see snow on the La Salle mountains. The blue spot in the center is a salt evaporation pond in a town called Potash.

It's kind of hard to tell in the picture, but the rocks on the left are ledges... the bottom right section of the pic is hundreds of feet below us. Those lines are dirt roads.


(To Be Continued....)