Prime Campsites

I've never been one for planning trips in advance (who does that anyway?), so I continued in this fashion and did not plan one bit of the Utah trip, aside from the national parks that I wanted to stop at. While I'm not going to actually recommend this technique to anyone out there planning a trip, it worked out okay for us. We were a group of three who knew nothing about any campsites on BLM land or National Park land. Yet we went camping for five weeks and still had a spot to sleep every night. Here is the highlight picture reel of these campsites:

Campsite: Colorado River Recreation Area site, just outside of Moab

Date: 10/11/2012

Result: Stunningly gorgeous landscape, and incredibly crazy thunderstorm at 5 am.

Campsite: Arches National Park backcountry site @ Clover Canyon

Date: 10/13, 10/14

Results: We Love Clover Canyon, and had it completely to ourselves... Wilderness

Campsite: Cowboy Camp, BLM land by Canyonlands Island in the Sky

Date: 10/15/2012

Result: Stupendous views! No cowboys though.

Campsite: Whistlewind BLM, somewhere towards the Needles District

Date: 10/16/2012

Result: Wish we'd gotten here earlier in the day, but perfect. And a good spot for bucket showers.

Campsite: Canyonlands NP backcountry, Devil's Pocket site

Date: 10/17/2012

Result: High walls and creepy vibes, also cold. But nice meadow in the morning!

Campsite: Canyonlands backcountry, on the slickrock

Date: 10/18/2012

Result: Luv n' it, caught the last of the sun and some sweet moon action.

Campsite: Canyonlands Backcountry

Date: 10/19/2012

Result: Beautiful redrock hike in, found a toad, got pretty creeped out at night.

Campsite: Capitol Reef NP, near Halls Creek Narrows

Date: 10/24/2012

Result: Hard slickrock, the Waterpocket Fold is SWEET

Campsite: Paria River BLM site, cottonwood "grove"

Date: 10/27/2012

Result: So relaxing, laundry in the river, burritos.

Campsite: somewhere in Vermillion Cliffs National Monument

Date: 10/28/2012

Result: Juniper fires and Stickwiththeplan Soup, tryna be like Ed Abbey

There ya go, the unplanned campsites of Utah! Sometimes it works to have no plans or expectations. Then you can be pleasantly surprised to stumble upon the most perfect campsites of all time.

Dang DC...

I'm only in town for a week, and so I'm trying to make the most of it. I've never done a real 'DC Summer', so on Tuesday I decided to test my luck at getting out and about in the city, instead of just lazing at home.

Tuesday in Bar Harbor means pick-up ultimate frisbee, and by chance it turns out that Tuesday evenings in DC are also frisbee nights on the mall. Lucky day- I was missing it.

I went down to the mall and joined in on the games for a couple of hours, silently freaking out to myself about how gorgeous the sky swirled around the Washington Monument as dusk fell. I made a pact with myself that I would try my darndest to watch the sunset on the National Mall every night that I was home.

Yesterday I got my chance, armed with a camera this time, in hopes that I could capture the magnificence of the mall in the evening. Let me back up and say that my favorite thing about DC summers are the thunderstorms. I don't get to see many thunderstorms in Maine during the year, and didn't see any while I was in Alaska, so I've been quite happy that there has been some crazy weather every day this week. And it makes for gorgeous sky colors.

So back to yesterday afternoon-- I met up with my friend Rachel from school, right before the wild 3-minute storm hit. One minute all was calm, the next minute saw torrential downpours and tent-ripping gusts of wind. As recent graduates from hippie college, we ran around barefoot eating strawberries and soaked it up!

We made our way to the mall, lo and behold the sky was indeed incredible! That blue against the capitol building, calm after the storm... can't get enough!

  

Later on in the evening, I wandered the mall as the sun was setting, true to my self-pact. Here are
some pictures of how pretty DC is. What-a-city!

What I Like About Not Being in School: Part 1

Today spring term began at COA. While my friends have presumably been shopping for classes and worrying about what to take, I had quite a lovely day!


1st stop: A different kind of shopping trip to Giant with Cynthia to impulse buy everything we need for our camping trip tomorrow. Our cart contained 4 boxes of animal crackers and 4 cans of beans, among other things.


2nd stop: New brake pads for my bike so I can bike around the city will less fear of injury.


3rd event: Biking to Georgetown, and sitting at the aqueduct in the sunshine.

4th: Seeing the MLK memorial

5th stop: The cherry blossoms! There were a couple peak trees, but on the whole they seem to be post-peak. What the heck, early spring?

6th stop: The Capitol! Where I took a pointing picture by myself. Cool.

7th: Moises had a long layover in DC, so he metroed to the mall and we hung out for the first time since last March!

Please ignore my awkward selfie-picture-taking face

Moises is holding up the Washington Monument! Look at him go!

It is good to be back in this city, yessir.

School of rocks

There is a mountain of rocks a block away from my house, and it took me till last week to climb up there. How embarassing! I went back this evening for sunset with a friend and we explored the huge boulders and secret caves until the sun was gone. 

While we were up there I heard two gunshots. I thought nothing of it-- this is Arizona! But turns out there was a domestic shooting two blocks from my house. The school was on lockdown for a bit and we were just sitting in my house freaking out... but all is well! 

This is my house ^ straight up.                                                 This is where the shooting was  ^

Aaaaand this ^ is one of the views from School of Rocks!