Night Snow

Okay, as much as I was complaining and griping about the Spring snow and wanting warmer weather now; I must admit that the view outside tonight is amazingly gorgeous. I decided to take some pictures this time with my camera instead of my cell phone.

You can see that it's still snowing and has been since the melting that happened earlier in the evening.

These two pictures were taken with the normal AUTO function on my camera. Pretty awesome sight, huh? Pretty cool pictures! However beautiful these shots are, they didn't do the scene justice. The AUTO function makes it seem as if it's a dark, stormy night. Even though it's 11 p.m., the sky is very light and is shining an eerily quiet orange glow which makes tonight's snow so gorgeous. I decided to take more pictures but test out my NIGHT PORTRAIT, SUNSET & FIREWORKS settings on my camera (remember, it's still fairly new to me) to see if I could get better results. I took a bunch of test pictures that didn't turn out so well, but a few did once I stabilized the camera instead of holding it in my hands. Boy do I need me a mini tripod! Next on my list.

At any rate, here are the shots I took in NIGHTVISION mode which quite closely capture the real essence of the night snow.

Stunning I must say!

Super Slushy!

The ton of snow we got last night and over the course of today has been reduced to slush. At least in the roads any way. This should make for some nice, ice-rink type road conditions after the sun "goes down" tonight. Can't wait!! Oh, remember, we need the moiSture!

Grumble, Grumble. . .

Remember when I was whining about the Springtime snow in a post not too long ago and how I just wanted the days to be warmer? Well, apparently Mother Nature doesn't give a crap about what I want. Everyone thank your Mother! THANKS, MOM!! Sheesh. Grrrr!

PLUS, I still had to go to work today while the rest of Wyoming got a snow day. Double grrrr.

Okay, I'm done complaining now.

Warmer Thoughts

Holy Buckets of Rice! Are we EVER going to get warmer weather? I am so sick of the spring snow. I know I shouldn't complain, but I just want to get outside and start hiking, walking & jogging. I wanna be warm. The whole of JAKL is feeling mighty cooped up and cabin-fevered out.

Our backyard at 6:00 p.m. ~sigh~

I don't like to sound all complainy and stuff so I'll just write about a nice warm road trip we took at the end of February that I've been meaning to blog about anyway. Maybe the telling of this trip will conjure warm thoughts and remind me that spring and summer are just around the corner for us here and I'll be complaining about how it's so hot that I can't sleep at night.

On Feb 26th, JAKL loaded up our Saturn Vue (named Leon, btw) and took a 12.5 hour drive down to the blue skies, dry climate and warm sun-filled days of Phoenix, AZ. We were surprising J's parents who snowbird down in them parts during the rough Wyoming winter and had no idea we were coming to visit them. This was really cool for me too because I had never been to Arizona before. w00t! Exciting. I love going to new places and we love adding new states to our geocaching repetoire.

See Phoenix. Right there! Says so on the mountain!

Phoenix provided us some much loved (and needed after that long drive) hiking. We were able to enjoy two long hikes, one for each day we were there. The scenery was spectacular. I had never laid eyes on a saguaro cactus and was amazed at how gigantic they were. I thought they were around 7 to 10 feet tall tops. . .wow! I think some of them were at least 30 to 40 feet tall. I also thought they only sported two arms. The status quo seemed to be 4 or more. It takes them 90 years to sprout an arm apparently. What word to use? Wonderful....Warm! I spent my youth watching those old western movies with my dad and now I felt as though I had a walk-on part on the set of one of those hot, dusty films.

Saguaro with the Superstition Mtns in background.


More scenery.


J takes way better shots than K does.


Saguaro Silouettes (my personal fav by J)


J's mom, me & one of the pups each tangoed with one of these
ouchy succulents. Can't remember the name of 'em, but they'd reach out and grab ya!
They were alive. . .ALIVE!!!

So the first day we were there, everyone kept talking about Tortilla Flat out beyond the Superstition Mtns. They weren't real specific in their rantings about it other than "we went out to Tortilla Flats. .." "Tortilla Flat is out that-a-way. .." and pointed in the direction out past the desolation beyond the mountains. *I* thought Tortilla Flat was this wonderful, oasis destination out in the wilderness where one could immerse oneself in the isolation of the hot, desert plains and become centered at last shaking away the hubbub and hustle of the city. I begged to go to Tortilla Flat with this naive expectation in mind. So, after 12.5 hours of driving, we got back IN Leon for a 40 minute drive up to Tortilla Flat. Was it the oasis I had hoped for? Well, it was an oasis, but much to my dismay, TF was just a restaurant with tons of tourists. Ugh. I braced myself for the worst!

The place was actually kind of cool. Barring the fact that there were scads of people milling around, traffic jams in the parking lot and rudeness abound, it wasn't 1/2 bad. The history is interesting. . .used to be the mining town for that area. But now, it's not. It's a gift shop/restauranty thingamahootie.

The first thing I noticed is that the walls & ceilings were covered in $1 bills signed by the person put it there. Now I had seen this before at other venues, but not to this extent. The coverage was phenomenal! Our friend Salamander is a Where's Georger (isn't that what you'd be called)? Anyway, he's obsessed with tracking his Federal Reserve Notes, so I immediately thought of him and took some shots. A couple extreme close-ups too with my still fairly new camera! So, these are for you, Sal!

This was the ceiling. We liked this colorful patch made up of foreign moola.


How bout a Hot George?


or a Goth George!? Jessicaca really rocked the Red Sharpie.

Oh and there were many more cool, defaced dollar bills and I could go on and on, but these two were my favorites really.

J's mom had a good time showing me all the kitchy stuff around the area. She made me pose for tons of goofy pictures, but I settled on this obligitory touristy photo op to share with you all. Go ahead . . .laugh.

Sort of sums it all up, huh?

The long weekend of 75 - 90 degree weather was fantastic and spoiling. Getting warm to the bone felt dreamy & all the hiking got our blood flowing in the right direction again. With all the hiking and eating and visiting; the puppies were happy, we were happy, J's parents were happy. We were all happy freaks.

JAKL headed back home on Sunday afternoon and decided to stop to sleep in a hotel in Alburqurque for a good night's rest instead of driving straight through. When we finally reached Cheyenne on Monday, the temp was a balmy 34 degrees F. Oh, what a tease that weekend turned out to be. And now tonight brings us Spring snow that is yet another reminder that the Cold has not yet quite let us out of her icy grip.

You betcher bottom dollar I'll be dreaming about those warm bones of our Phoenix trip tonight!

Brrrrrr!!!

Today I woke up not only to snow but to Wind. I capitalize Wind to personify the word because those of you not lucky enough to be from Wyoming do not know that the Wyoming Wind has a mind of it's own and has a personality much like that of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.

Today, as with most of this month already, is a Mr. Hyde day.

Hide if you can! Run if you must! Just keep yourself safe and warm.

New Traditions

This is the first Christmas that my mom has lived out of state and J's mom and dad have snow birded. This is also the first Christmas as a married couple. Since times seem like they are a changin', we decided to do something completely and utterly different this year on Christmas Day.

We decided to rent snow machines up in the Snowy Range area and drive up to the cabin! Sounds like a great adventure, doesn't it?! Well, it was one of the best Christmases I've had as an adult, I must say.

We woke up and were ready to roll at 730 on Christmas morning. The couple we usually travel with met us at our house for the ride over to Albany. We rented two touring snow machines at the fun and friendly Albany Lodge which is located about 30 miles south of Centennial, Wyo where we were married.

We started our snow machining trip from Albany and took the trail that led us past Rob Roy Reservoir and headed to Hwy 130 via the Libby Flats trail. The trek across this icy tundra was the coldest and most windy part of the trip (2 hrs one-way). I was a little peeved because I thought my snow boots broke because my dang feet were FREEZING! I had 3 layers on underneath my coat, but the wind easily cut through the fabric and iced up my skin. Also, this was the bumpiest (did I spell that right) part of any of the trails. I almost got bucked off plenty of times. Later when I asked J if he heard me screaming for dear life, he said he thought I was just having a good time. NOT!!! Well, it *was* fun, but it wrecked havoc on me poor back.

Here we are taking a break right in the middle of Libby Flats' icy tundra wind tunnel! Don't ask me why we stopped in this god-forsaken area or what I was doing with my arms! Heh, heh, I think I was adjusting my balaclava between my helmet & coat:

Once we got past the Libby Flats Lookout and turned left on Hwy 130, we saw the Range in all her glory. ((GASP, GASP!!)) She looks more lovely, larger & closer to the road and more foreboding in the winter than when seeing her in the summer. I was amazed to see one of my favorite places in the world wearing a different season than I was used seeing. She wears winter like a royal majestic cloak and reigns supreme through the stormy clouds. I love this place.

The drive to the cabin took a couple hours and couple trails (5 different trails to be exact) to complete. For an area I know so well, the surroundings looked so different that we drove right past the entrance to the cabin. Do you realize how hard it is to flip a U-turn on a snow machine on a tiny trail? Oy. Very.

We backtracked to the entrance of the cabin "neighborhood" and snow shooed about 1 mile in to our humble abode. Man, was that hard breaking trail in waist-deep snow! Thank goodness for our good friend Jeanne who did most of the breaking! What a trooper! We got to the cabin exhausted but warmed up from the work out that trompin through the snow provided. My feet finally warmed up so my boots weren't broken after all :), but I did get into my stash of clothes I left up at the cabin this past fall, donned on an extra pair of socks and two extra layers of shirts (1 thermal long-sleeved & a fleece hoodie) for the ride home. Jeanne had made & packed in some awesome turkey noodle soup and hot schnocolate (hot chocolate with schnapps & brandy. . .yuuuuuummm!) that hit the spot.

Here's me at the entrance to the cabin! Whew, I had never been so glad to reach a destination in my entire life:

Since the trek in took us longer than we expected, we had to hurry and close up cabin and get our booties back to the snow machines that we left on the side of the trail. Funny thing is that the trip back only took 1/4 of the time as going in because the trail had already been broken and we had some brandy running through our veins. We were good to go.

I took this picture from inside the cabin before I locked up as J was making his way back down the snowshoe trail:

We got back to the machines about 3:10 p.m. which was perfect timing since we had to be back at the lodge by 5:00 p.m. The air in the area had warmed up so the trip back found us enveloped in a light snow storm which was kinda scary but spectacular at the same time. Libby Flats mogul tundra pretty much sucked as much as it did on the first leg of the trip, but we made it through and got back to Albany Lodge at exact 5:00! We all had a beer in the lodge and reminisced about our day's journey before setting off to make the drive home.

Our round trip mileage ended up being 100 miles which is like driving a snow machine from Cheyenne to Denver. Pretty daunting task when you think about it. What an awesome day!! I hope we do this every year for Christmas. What a fun, adventuresome and invigorating way to spend the holiday. Come join us next time :) Kisses.

Poll CLOSED!

I ain't talkin' 'bout no Presidential poll either. I'm speaking of a more important poll. . .the JAKL blog poll. You voters decided & the favorite holiday by popular vote is:

!Halloween!

Welcome to my nightmare! We will see what tomorrow brings us!

Somewheres over yonder there!

So, many of you readers have been inquiring as to the whereabouts of our new cabin. Your wish is my command and I am now ready to post that information. Said land is located some 9,600 ft above sea level, southeast of Elk Mountain, north of Medicine Bow Peak, east-ish of Turpin Resevoir and west-ish of Sand Lake. If that's too vague for you, keep tuning in for other posts regarding said location. Until then, please enjoy these latest pictures.

Majestic Elk Mountain can be seen some places on the way up to the property.

The pond on Oct 19th and then again just one week later!

J the Geocacher setting some coordinants on the GPS.

Blue skies smilin' on us & unspoiled scenery.

HoliDAZE?!?!?

Okay, we made a trip to Home Depot today for some home improvement-y items. I know I shouldn't be shocked, but they already had the flippin' Christmas section fully displayed with rows of tannenbaums pre-decorated with those cutesy little lights. I am already sick of Christmas before Halloween. Sheesh!

All this thought of decking the halls while simultaneously watching the Slasher Movie Marathon for Fright Week has led me to decide to poll you readers out there to see what your favorite holiday is. Please see poll to the right of the blog screen. I am fickle and my favorite holiday changes from year to year sometimes even from month to month. So, don't wait. . .cast your vote now! ROCK the vote! Be a voter! Love to Vote! Vote! Vote! Vote! Polls close on Nov 4th! So do the RIGHT thing! ;)

Ice, Ice, Baby

Stop!

Collaborate and listen. . .

Took lots of pictures of ice this weekend. Ice is fascinating. As both my friend Slick and J have told me numerous times that you have to snap many, many pictures to come up with a few decent photos. Boy, is THAT the truth. I took so many pictures of ice experimenting with the different settings on my new camera. Flash on. . .Flash off. Zoom in. . .Zoom out. Wax on. . .Wax off. Taking pictures of the white, crystally, crunchy clean ice; the clear ice that clung to river rock; and the muddy, dirty but simply divine, shiny, chunky "chocolate" colored ice.

Here are the decent ones: