Hiking at Enchanted Rock

We're alive! We finally got off our lazy butts and got a Flickr account. Lets see if I can figure out how to work it.

A couple months ago we went hiking at Enchanted Rock. They had recently gotten some rain fall, so there was a lovely little waterfall that we adventurously decided to climb through. By the end of the day, when we were coming back down the hill, the waterfall had dried up. We definitely hit it just at the right time.














It was... Windy.



Brandon loved the top of Enchanted Rock because it looked like being on some sort of alien moon. I agree with him, it was definitely a different kind of hike.

Brandon was adamant that we find the National Geologic Survey Marker. It was REALLY hard to find, since it was so tiny. But we found it!

Did I mention it was rainy and wet?



On the moon. Or over the moon, depending on your perspective.

There's a cave on the back side of Enchanted Rock. We climbed down to it, Brandon did some exploring, and we took a break for lunch.

Steep and slippery.





Cooking dinner back at the campsite.





A quick late-night hike to a scenic overlook.



Breakfast burritos back at the main camp ground.

Yum!

Cleanup.

We went for one last hike to a small frog pond tucked away in a corner of the park.

Aside from the cacti, it was oddly reminiscent of Michigan. There were a lot of species of plant in common, and we could hear crickets - not terribly common in Texas.



Every few minutes we'd hear a frog go "plop" into the water. We were always too slow to see them.

Well now that we have a Flickr account set up, it should be easier to get back to blogging. But it's a double-edged sword. I'm entering my final semester of grad school and things are going to be crazy. So don't expect a terribly consistent schedule. I'll try and check in once in a while.

Bye for now!

Time Certainly Does Fly

Hey guys. I'm fully aware of the unannounced months-long hiatus. I'm really sorry about that. I just wanted to drop in to explain.

A couple of things happened. Firstly, our blogger account says it's full and we can't upload any more photos. That's a simple fix: I just need to create a Flickr or photobucket account and continue with business as usual. I just haven't gotten around to doing it.

Which brings me to the second thing. I've turned a corner with my thesis work. In short, it's crunch time (and it's only going to get worse). And I just don't have the energy for blogging right now. We also haven't been picking up the camera as much, or trying as many ambitious cooking projects. Again: crunch time. We've been eating a lot of TV dinners, frozen pasta and take-out.

Lastly, my computer situation is kind of up in the air. I replaced my work and home computers both at the same time, and moving all my life's most important files over (everything from our precious family and food photos to the all-important lab data) is nerve-racking and time consuming. I'm also using a tablet for my day-to-day web browsing now rather than a laptop, which is far less than ideal for blogging.

In any case, this is the situation: I will obviously be blogging less often. But I will make an attempt to pop in from time to time and keep you updated on all our various adventures (even if they are a little less exciting these days). But I'm not going away. After I graduate, Brandon and I are  moving to Seattle, and there are going to be a great many new adventures there. The move will take place some time around August, possibly later, but no later than December. Once in Seattle, I hope to start blogging with a vengeance again. After all, we'll have a whole new city's worth of restaurants to try!

I appreciate your patience. Wish me luck on my thesis, and I promise we'll resurface after I finish grad school. Believe me when I say; I'm really looking forward to it.

Channukah Bush

I have some catching up to do, since we've done a few fun things between our trip to Big Bend and Thanksgiving, but for the moment I just want to show off our Channukah decorations, which we just finished putting up.

I decided to try something a little different this year. I put up a Channukah Bush!

It's a real tree. My very first, in fact. 

Quorra was instantly curious. 

While I decorated, Brandon polished the menorah, 

And took artsy photos including both. 

I got decorative dreidels for cheap, they're shiny so they'll reflect the light. I hung a bunch of them around the tree.

 The garland has stars of david and dreidels. It's blue on one side and silver on the other. This was the motif for the whole tree. 

 Quorra loved it more and more as we added more shiny, dangly things...

Gonna have to keep an eye on that.  

Adding a few finishing touches... 

Finished product! 

Close-up. 

 We set up the Menorah the same way we usually do,

But with fancier candles this year, and as always, the Happy Hanukah banner up top. 

We'll be in San Antonio for all of Channukah, then we're flying home for Christmas and New Years. We'll let everyone know what our schedule is when we know it. But for now, it's latkes in Texas again!!

Hike! (Big Bend, pt.2)

*We discovered we have a TON of photos, so we're splitting our Big Bend vacation into two parts. This is the second part.*

After we survived the river, we collected the rest of the gear we'd left in Terlingua and made our way back toward Big Bend. Losing daylight and worn out from paddling, we swung by the ranger station to check in. It was then time to pull out the GPS receiver, locate Pine Canyon, and crash for the night.

Nugent Mountain

Amanda took the opportunity to clean up. Brandon took some comedically unflattering photos. ^_^

Then, food. There's nothing more relaxing than food.

Did we mention there were pretty mountains in the background?

We car-camped that night, mainly because it was SUPER cold out, and we really needed proper rest after our overnight in the canyon. But we woke up the next day rested, and ready to start our big hike.

The drive into the basin of the Chisos Mountains was beautiful. The fog just made it look even cooler.

We packed up and started on what was supposed to be a 2-day hike...

The double-glasses look is gonna catch on! I swear!

The plan was to hike up to the South Rim of the Chisos, where we would camp overnight, then hike back down. Unfortunately, I was still suffering from heat exhaustion, and I barely made it a quarter of the way before I started showing symptoms again. So we opted to play it safe. We came back down the mountain, emptied our overnight packs and picked a day hike to do instead.

We took a quick last photo before leaving the trail. The valley in the background is actually the spot we decided to hike to instead.

We started on our day hike, and saw some awesome stuff while we were down in the basin...

Brandon found two wild tarantulas. He was REALLY excited.

The last leg of the hike brings you to a formation called "The Window." Brandon had the camera on video mode as we walked up to it, and he got some phenomenal videos. We're having a hard time getting them to upload to blogger, but we're going to leave them here in the hopes that it'll work. We'll keep fiddling with them and try to upload them some other way (possibly using my youtube account) so you can see them at a later date. Seriously, they're really cool. 

But in the meantime, here are the few photos we took once we reached The Window. They don't quite catch how stunning it was, but they're fun photos nonetheless.

Just on the other side of us is a sheer drop of about 200 feet. So... we didn't get too close!

We got back to our room at the lodge and feasted on our picnic lunch. It was a welcome treat.

After a good night's sleep in a warm bed, it was time for the long drive home.

We saw a wind farm on the way and Brandon geeked out. He insisted I include a photo for you to see...

We got a lot more videos throughout the trip, both in the canyon and up in the mountains. We'll figure out what's going on with the uploads and do a video post some time soon. But for now, that was the whole vacation! We've been back for a month now and I still can't believe I slept in a canyon.....