Grand Canyon, Part 3

On the second day we passed Vasey's paradise, this beautiful waterfall that gushes out of the canyon straight into the Colorado. The only reason we didn't get out to walk around is that a lot of that lush green is poison ivy.

Then we stopped at Redwall Cavern. Apparently one of the first American's to run the Colorado in the 1800s, John Wesley Powell, said you could fit 50,000 men in Redwall Cavern. This is, um, not true at all, but it is a really cool place :) I might have to borrow a picture from a previous trip

for a view from the river.

Mom and I in the Cavern,

Kathy telling something funny to our guide Mark.

We ate lunch at and then hiked Saddle Canyon. This is one I hadn't hiked since the first trip in 2004. It was nice and cloudy so we didn't die of heat exhaustion.

The first picture is the view from the river, you can see part of the trail on the left. Then me at the end at the little waterfall we hiked to; a better picture of the end is the bottom left. On our way back I took a picture of Jan so she could have a record of how high and far she hiked, she made it all the way!

At the top there was a ledge to sort of be pulled over, which was even more exciting on the way down, aka try not to free fall backwards. Jan decided not to climb the ledge, but was still very proud to have made the whole hike :D

We camped at Nankoweap (not to be confused with little nankoweap like we did in 2007) and hiked the Granaries that evening. This is the view from the river, and then looking up the very steep trail. I went with mom and Jan and we were about 75% of the way when Parke, another one of the guides, started telling people to hike down because a huge thunderstorm was rolling in. Actually, it had been threatening for a while and raining slightly, but then it really got close.This is the view from near the top, I scampered up a little as people were coming down and snapped a few pictures. I'm not posting the one with me in it because I look like, well, like I ran up a mountain :P

At camp we were debating whether to tent or not to tent, or whether to pitch 1-2 tents for 5 people as a back-up. Then Mark said, I would pitch tents if you haven't already. So we pitched 3 2-person tents, which turned out to be a very good idea since it rained on and off all night long. Luckily Karma 4 is an expert at pitching tents, because although I can, I was so exhausted from our 2 long hikes that it was nice to not have to use my brain at that point. :D

Grand Canyon, Part 2

We made a lot of miles the first day. This is the Navajo Bridge that we walked to from the lodge, scene here from the river.

We had lunch at mile 14 above sheer wall rapid. Cold sandwich buffet with different meats and cheeses, always fresh lettuce and tomato, various chips and cookies.

This is one of the rapids we ran, probably one of the roaring twenties.

We camped at Shinumo Wash, mile 29. Since we didn't hike the first day, Karma 4 and I wandered and explored the campsite, hoping to find our way into a side canyon. We found the side canyon, but requires ropes to climb. It was very pretty though.

We wandered the rest of the beach, ran into some bugs on the far side, and came back to camp for a steak dinner.

In the morning, camp was beautiful.

This was my little campsite.

I had a problem with ravens... as in, they unzipped my bag and removed some of my stuff. I don't think they actually took anything, but I'm not sure what they were after.

Breakfast was eggs to order and sausage, with fruit and english muffins. Watching the boatmen try to crash eggs as they threw them into the river was really funny entertainment too ^_^

Grand Canyon, Part 1

This will be the tales of my trip to the Grand Canyon. I'm going to post in a lot of parts, because I want to post a lot of pictures and stories and if I do it all at once, both me and the reader(s) might die in the process of the longest entry EVER.

My mom and I, her friends Karma (3) and Jan, and Karma's niece Karma (4), flew to Las Vegas on June 9th and met in the airport. Karma 4 and I had never met, but I made some random joke that she burst out laughing at, and we looked at each other and realized, oh dear, we have the same sense of humor... this is going to be an awesome week :D We shuttled to a smaller airport in Vegas, and took a small prop plane to Marble Canyon Lodge, stopping at the Bar Ten ranch on the way.

We got lots of awesome views and a bit of a rollar coaster ride. This is me, Karma 4, Karma 3, and Jan in the little plane.

Both my mom and I managed to not take a picture of the lodge, but we do have a good before shot of our group, all showered and not yet sandy and sunburned the morning of the launch.

The day we got in, mom and I collapsed in our hotel and took a nap. Later we went with the Beans and the Philpots to the Hatch store and bought some T-shirts and carribeaners. We ate in the lodge around 7 and met several people that were rafting with us, and I promptly mixed them all up- in my defense, there were 4 Elizabeths.

The next morning we gathered outside the lodge and were picked up by vans for a 10 minute drive to the launch site, Lee's Ferry. This is a shot as we were pulling away.

The rafts we rode on are 35 foot motorized pontoons with a steel frame and industrial rubber tubes. Most of the gear like food and over supplies is packed on the bottom, almost at river level. This is an empty raft at camp later in the trip.

Then they take our night gear and lash it down with tarps and rope.

Then we can get on the raft and clip our stuff to the duffel pile. In rapids and wind, you want everything but yourself attached to the raft.

And with a few safety instructions and a life jacket tightning party, we were off! :D

Adventures at Pandapas Pond

I like to hike at Pandapas pond, which is a few miles down 460 from my house. I just found an amazing interactive map of the trail system here: http://www.weaselworks.org/pandapas/pandapasmap.html

Usually I hike Poverty creek for about half a mile, take a left on Joe Pye, and then loop back on the end of Horse Nettle to the pond; this can be done in a little over an hour, and its approximately a 3 mile loop.Today I wanted to hike for about two hours, so I thought I would just walk poverty creek for an hour and then turn around and come back. But then I decided to make a loop of poverty creek, to snake root, and then coming back on more of horse nettle, which I just calculated to be about 5 miles. Thing was, it took forever to finally reach horse nettle. I thought it would take me an hour to get there but it was more like an hour and 20 minutes. And it was steep uphill near the end and I didn't know whether to press on or turn around. Finally found it and found myself walking on a fire road near I guess some hunting areas, and a huge bonfire area. On horse nettle I found a 3-4 foot black snake in the path, which startled me at first but it was super cool. I tried to see what color his belly was, but all that did was make him move away faster. Made it back to the pond and saw diving geese and one of these guys just chillin on the path- obviously he (she?) didn't mind me getting pretty close.All in all a good hike, although very hot (which was the point, I was trying to condition myself for hiking in the grand canyon next week), but awesome nature sightings, and now I've done a larger chunk of pandapas trails :)

Joanna's cat Selly

Pissed. So pissed.

Faith as a Poster

I cannibalized a poster today to preserve it.

Back in the late 90s/early 2000's in my youth group, we would write affirmations to each other each retreat on poster boards. Being the sentimental pack-rat that I am, I kept them all through at least part of college, slowly getting rid of them (or maybe they are just hidden in a pile somewhere). I'm down to my last one, and it hasn't been on my wall in years - mostly because I'm lazy about decorating my bedroom. As I am moving in 2.5 months, I'm trying to weed through my piles of unnecessary possessions and today I started on the posters. If it's not actually going on my wall in Atlanta, it's not going with me, at least in poster form. So this particular one I cut into pieces by paragraph and made it into a scrapbook page.

Its weird, but it was almost painful cutting into that piece of paper. I'd had it for so long, and it's meant so much to me for so many years, a reminder of my friends and faith during high school. And while I'm not disowning that, it's no longer necessary to be on my wall. But since I want to keep the words, it made since to make it portable and put it in my scrapbook. As I cut it, I was trying to convince myself that I wasn't ruining it. I mean, the words, the important part, were still there. But as I cut it, I knew it wouldn't the be same. My poster fit into my hand when I was done.

In some ways, this sort of symbolizes my faith journey lately. I'm not who I was at 17. Which is okay, good even...! It wouldn't be healthy to not have changed and grown in almost 10 years. But as I take my beliefs from then and try and fit my life into them, it's not the same. It looks different. And I have to remind myself that although it looks different, the words are still the same. The important part is still there. It's not that I've left my faith or changed what I believe drastically, it's just that my walk with God is going to be different at 26 than it was at 16 or 17.

Instead of keeping my poster under my bed for the rest of my life, I cut it up to be able to read it often with less dust and clutter. In the same way, I need to rework some parts of my faith so that I'm walking with God now, not trying to act or feel like I did at 14, or 17, or 22. I like the idea of making memorials, or remembering where I came from and all of the good (and bad) things in my life. This is one reason I love scrapbooking so much; its an opportunity to remember and preserve the good times I've had with family and friends. Especially for my faith, the idea of remembering is even Biblical, like when Joshua built a memorial to remember God's provision in getting them across the Jordan. Built a monument, remember the good that God has done... and keep walking. It's also important to not get stuck in the past and trying to keep living there.

So as I weed through stuff, I'm trying to simultaneously built memorials and keep walking. And to remember that its better that my faith change and grow, as confusing and painful as that can be, than to remain forever 17, as good as that year was.