Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Ideas?

Anyone know what to do with a giant squash/zucchini mutant? We planted our monsoon garden with seeds form native seed search, and this is the crazy shit we are getting. It's like the attack of the killer tomatoes, but green. It also makes people exhibit extreme shyness, as shown by my friend Jessi. She used to be so outgoing, but the mutant has done her in.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Technology has got the best of me

I have been trying to post the sweet kayaking video I have from our trip, but for some reason, it is transfering from the camera to the mac as a .jpg. Anyone have any ideas? I am sure that Steve knows how to fix it, but that may take a while.

So to keep things moving along, I have posted pictures form the trip on flikr.

For those who are intersted in the details, here you go.....

The trip was three days and two nights. There was a local couple in their late 50's/early 60's, another local couple in their late 20's, and a guy from NC in his mid 30's. Our guide was also local and in his mid 30's. It was a fun group.

The first day we met at about 8:30 and went over to where we were putting in, and packed our stuff and packed the boats and learned about kayaking. Then we paddled for a while and stopped for lunch on a little island. It was maybe 1/2 square block in size, but we still saw a momma deer and to babies in the brush. They must have swam. It was pretty far to another piece of land. Kind fo a sucky mom if you ask me, but maybe they like swimming. Really, who am I to judge.

Then we kept going for what felt like forever, probably another 3 hours or so and got to where we were camping on Stuart island. It was cool because you can see Canada, and border patrol helicopters, from our camp site. The border patrol reminded us of Tucson. Not exactly what you are looking for in a vacation, but oddly familiar at the same time. We camped at the same place both nights so we didn’t have to keep unpacking and repacking, which was nice. That night we ate and drank a lot of wine and went down to a dock and splashed our hands in the water and saw the bioluminescence. It looked like the water was full of sparklers whe you agitated it.

The second day you are supposed to paddle around the island, but we were all tired and hung-over so we decided that we would take a little hike on the island and do a sunset paddle instead. The guide stayed back to have lunch ready for us when we got back and we all took off for about 3 hours. The island was much more inhabited at one time. At first I was dreading going because I thought I would get sunburned....seems I forgot that there are trees in most parts of the world. It was great walking in about 70 degree weather with shade.

We got back and ate lunch and then some people played cards and steve and I went down to the docks to take a nap in the sun. I guess we are getting thin blood. At about 5 we ate an appetizer (warm brie with sautéed apples, cranberries and walnuts)and then went on the sunset paddle.

The last day we got up early because we had to work with the tides. At about 4 am the wind was rally howling and was pulling off our rain fly. When we got on the water to head back to San Juan Island, the waves were about 3 feet tall. I thought it was awesome because the front of the kayak was slamming into the waves and water was splashing everywhere. Steve didn't like it so much in the back because some of the waves were going completely over the boat. We were only in that for about 45 minutes until we got on the other side of an island. We later found out from our guide that it was a pretty dangerous situation. I still think it was awesome.

We were ahead of schedule coming back, so we stopped on the little island again for lunch, and then it was only like 20 minute or something to a different harbor where we were getting picked up. We went back to town and we checked in to our hotel and took showers. The rest of the younger people were taking the ferry back that night, so we met up with them at a bar while they waited to leave. Then we went to dinner at a nice place where I had made reservations. I am sure the food was good, but we were a little too tipsy to really pay attention to what we were eating. Probably not wise when your meal costs $100. Oh well.

Anyway, that was it in a nutshell.

Tuesday, September 09, 2008


It took a car, a plane, another plane, another car, and a ferry to get to this little kayak, but it was well worth it. I hope to download pictures tonight and get some of the details up here for everyone to puruse. This picture is courtesy of one of our trip companions, Kirsten. Don't we look so Sporty Spice?

Wednesday, September 03, 2008


This is why I hate doing yard work in Tucson. I had a little run in with a century plant. All this from a teeny weeny pin prick. I guess I can say that I put my blood, sweat, and tears into the yard and not be exaggerating.

Monday, September 01, 2008

What I did on my Labor Day vacation

Well, I didn't pull weeds. Not that it wasn't needed. We just wanted to do some things that were non house related for once. Whoever said that owning a house was awesome is a big fat liar. I know that I should be grateful, starving kids in China don't have houses, blah, blah, blah, but when you have water leaking from somewhere on your roof and THROUGH the cracks in your newly painted cabinets that took three months to finish, and said roof leak can not be found one the outside, you start thinking that those kids in China kind of have it ok, especially with all of the CG Olympic fireworks to watch.

Anyway.....Saturday I finally bought a memory card for the camera after two years and we went to Mt. Lemmon. Sunday we went to the store to get some last minute outdoorsy things for the upcoming kayaking trip, and a couple of the neighborhood girls came over for knitting and various TJ's chips and dips. Today I went shopping with a friend, then we went over to another friend's in the neighborhood to celebrate labor day. I only took pictures of the exciting things. The following photo essay is a brief yet delving visual of our Mt. Lemmon excursion. Enjoy.