New Year's Resolution

After ONE YEAR of hard work, I finally finished my goal to read 52 books in 52 weeks.  I even had 30 hours to spare!

Some of the recommended titles for you:
Because of Mr. Terupt
As Small as an Elephant
Eggs
Liar and Spy
The One and Only Ivan

I decided to choose Harry Potter as my 52nd book... after all, Harry was the one who got me hooked on reading.

Smoky Mountains

After spending the holidays in Illinois with my family, we packed up the car and headed 700 miles south towards the Smoky Mountains.  My aunt and uncle and cousins drove up from Georgia and we drove down from Wisconsin/Illinois.  The Smoky Mt National Park straddles Tennessee and North Carolina and though it has it's own name, the mountain range is really remnants of the Appalachian Mountains.  Because the mountain range is so far south, they don't get snow like we do in Wisconsin, though the temperatures up at the peaks typically fall below freezing in the winter.  When we drove through, it was interesting to see all of the frozen icicles formed from dripping water and to see rushing waterfalls from mountain runoff.  To our surprise, we saw an elk and a coyote as we drove through the mountain pass... both moving too fast to snap a photo! Learn more about the animals, history and Cherokee Indian culture here.

While we were driving through the mountain pass at dusk, we stopped to take a few photos.  The snow was only on the west side of every hill side and tree because the west setting sun warmed it enough to melt.  The east sides were still snow covered.  

Some photos from hiking and driving adventures...

If the temperature is cold enough, places where waterfalls occur in the summer turn to frozen ice drips in the winter.  The ice looks so pretty when the sun catches it, but don't walk underneath them! 

My cousin Julia and me hanging out on a mountain top.  

Sadly, I haven't seen a bear yet... but we found evidence!! Because it rained so much, the ground was pretty muddy and we were able to see lots of tracks. 

River walking with Gunny and Julia. 

Honduras

My final big trip of the summer was to Honduras.  We stayed in El Progresso, a town not far outside of San Pedro Sula.  See if you can find that on a map!  Our main mission while down there was to build a home for a family who attended our partner church.  Since I went to Honduras last summer, I sort of knew what to expect... but then again every day was a new adventure. 

 Honduras, at times, can be very dangerous and we had to be very cautious about where we went, who we spoke to and how we traveled.  Each morning, we would leave the church where we were staying and board a bus to get to our work site.  When we finished working at the end of the day, we would come right "home" to the campus of the church.  We kept ourselves safe behind the gates of the church property with a basketball court/soccer field, picnic tables, a kitchen, and lots of adventures to pursue on our free time.  In the evenings, after dinner, we mostly played card games or Bananagrams by flashlight.  

Our living arrangements were in a school/church.  This was one of the classrooms and some of the students.  Does it look like our classroom?  

The working conditions during the day were usually 90 degrees with 90-100% humidity, which makes a long 8 hour work day in the sun with no relief.  This was one of our break times- turning over buckets to rest on.  In the foreground is a pile of sand we used to make cement.  Behind that are big rocks we used for the foundation of the house. 

One of my favorite parts of this trip was our visit back to the family we built for last year.  This is Maria.  She is 8 years old and lives in the house we built last summer with her mom, 2 sisters, brother and nephew.  It was so great to see the finished product once they had moved in.  Maria is always full of smiles! My favorite memory of her was when I brought a photo album of our trip last year.  She had never seen a printed photo of herself and thought it was so cool!

This is Emily and me on our work site.  She has become a really great friend through these trips, though most of the time, she gets me into trouble!!

Atlanta and Savannah

ATLANTA

The whole family made it down to Atlanta to my aunt and uncle's house to celebrate my cousin's high school graduation.  Luckily, my aunt and uncle have a pool in their backyard, so we were able to beat the heat in the pool every day.  Their yard also backs up to a horse farm, we fed the horses some after dinner snacks.  Jocee, my youngest niece, had never seen a horse outside of Toy Story (Run like the wind Bullseye!) or her animal books, so she was quite intimidated by the big giants.  My dad was holding her, but she really wanted nothing to do with them!  My older niece, Audrey ruined my peaceful relaxing days in the pool because she ATTACKED me with the squirt gun every time I climbed on a raft to nap.  Audrey loved the pool so much that her fingers and toes were all wrinkled like raisins for the entire week because she was living in the pool.  Jocee on the other hand, was less than thrilled with being in the water.  Though, she did love throwing the beach balls back into the pool.  

   

And at the end of the week, we went to SCOOPS, my favorite ice cream place.  Audrey and I only got into a little bit of trouble :)  She had superman ice cream, which looks pretty cool but tastes disgusting!

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Savannah - Robeling Road Race Track

After my parents, sisters and nieces left to drive back to Illinois and Wisconsin, my aunt and uncle and cousins drove down to Savannah.  It was a little tiring being on the road again, seeing as I just spent a 1,000 miles in the car driving around Oregon and California... not to mention that I drove with my mom and dad down to Georgia, which was another 800 miles.  So, I was less than thrilled to pack into a car again to drive the 5 hours from Atlanta to Savannah, but I was really excited to get to see my cousin, Jason, race.  At the same time Wisconsin was experiencing 100+ degree heat, so was Georgia.  In fact, the temperature was over 100 all weekend, which broke a 40 year record in Atlanta!  Yowsers.  So, obviously, it was quite hot and sweaty at the race track!! 

Jason races modified street cars on road tracks.  That means that the track is sort of windy instead of an oval shape like most Nascar tracks.  If you flew over the track in an airplane, the course would look sort of like a giant F...though if you were in a plane, you wouldn't be able to watch the excitement of the race.  Take a look at some of the photos below.  Remember how I said that it was really hot?  Well imagine being in 100 degree heat wearing a full body fire proof suit, a face mask and a helmet. Yikes! So, to make sure that the driver's don't overheat, they need to stay hydrated and to stay cool.  The white shirt with the blue piping is a cooling shirt.  Cold water circulates through the blue pipe to cool down the driver's body temperature.  Pretty cool invention huh?!   And of course, once Jason is strapped in with multiple seat belts, he puts a neck brace and helmet on.  Safety first!

That's my uncle (he was on radio contact duty to be able to talk to Jason while he was driving) and my cousin Julia.  

Jason placed 3rd in an endurance race, which is a hour and a half road race.  It's a tough job, and I was pretty proud of him!

Redwood National Forest

     After Crater Lake, we set out for Northern California to the Redwood Forest.  The Redwood Forest has been on my bucket list since my dad told me about them when I was a kid, so you can imagine my excitement about visiting there on this trip.  Redwood seeds are about the size of a tomato, but the trees can grow to be taller than the Statue of Liberty and weigh 500 tons!  It is the tallest living thing on EARTH! These trees only grow in one area of the world: Southwest Oregon and Northwest California.  All of the land that they inhabit is protected because they are so rare.  
      Oddly, Redwood trees have no tap root.  When I learned this, I knew they must have some other adaptation that helps them survive, otherwise they would blow over with strong coastal winds.  I later found out that their roots go only 10-15 feet deep (though they can grow to 380 ft. tall) but the roots spread out 60 to 80 feet wide.  

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          While in California, we also hiked along the ocean at Patrick's Point.  In the bottom picture, we hiked up the cliff on the far left and then on the summit straight ahead.  Just a little rock climbing to get our blood flowing.  The view overlooking the Pacific was pretty stunning.  There is sort of this perpetual fog over the coast, which is really good for the redwood trees, as they soak up the moisture in their needles.  They get about 30% of the water they need from the foggy air.  The coast line is pretty rugged, but the cliffs are beautiful.  We looked for whales and seals, but didn't see any.  Maybe next time.  
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     My absolute favorite hike of the entire trip was Fern Canyon.  You can only get to the canyon by dirt road through the redwoods.  Literally you look out one window and you are staring at uprooted trees taller than your car, and out the other window all you see is a valley below and sunlight trickling in through the openings in the tree canopy above.  Even in the middle of the day, you need to use your headlights because the shadows are so intense.  This 8 mile drive on a dirt path through the wilderness is pretty amazing- though often we were unsure where the road would eventually lead us.  Horrific scenes flashed through my mind: "Teacher lost in the forest,"  "Two friends get car stuck in Redwood Forest," "Vacationers misread map and fall off cliff."  Alas, none of these headlines were printed in the local papers.  Finally, the shadows opened up and we were driving with the ocean/beach along our left side and a wall of tall trees on our right side.  We had to drive over/through some streams, which scared me... but Erin assured me that they were shallow enough to drive over.  Yikes!!  When we finally were able to get out to hike... we saw a wonderland of greenery.  

         A large creek runs through the middle of the canyon.  This water is runoff of melted snow and so it is ice cold, but crystal clear.  There are no fish swimming in this creek, because its depth and speed depend on snow and rain water.  ALTHOUGH, Erin did see a snake about 1 foot away from me while I was trying to cross the river.  Thankfully I kept my balance and was able to cross over without falling in.  The ferns in the canyon grow on the sides of everything, which gives every surface a textured look.  

         There are many redwoods that have fallen over time.  They lay undisturbed in the forest and provide homes to insects, moss, squirrels and birds.  Most of the time when they fall, their roots pull out of the ground because they are so shallow.  This leaves exposed roots up in the air, which are so cool to look at.  More than that, they are fun to climb on!  

             Take a look at this cool berry.  It looks like a raspberry, other than the color obviously.  I didn't eat it because I've read WAAAAYYY too many stories about characters who eat fruit in the woods that ends up being poisonous and then they turn into a wicked witch or a bald gnome or a TEACHER... so I didn't dare try.  I also saw hundreds of banana slugs.  If you spread out your hand into a giant 5, they are about the size from your thumb to your pinkie.   Even though I was hungry on our hike... I didn't eat one :)


But... I did make this on the campfire:














Veggie Pizza!

  And....Chocolate Chip Pancakes!

Trailhead: Crater Lake

Do you know what a bucket list is?  I feel very strongly about them, and I feel that everyone should have one.  A bucket list is a list of things you want to do during your life.  They can be big things or small things.  My bucket list is ever growing and ever changing as I cross things out and add new items to the list.  One of the things on my bucket list is to visit all 50 states.  I'm about 1/2 way there... and when I was making my summer plans, I wanted to be sure to visit some states I've never been to before.   That is why I started my summer travels in Oregon.

Take a look at the map to see my path!

I usually am a very light packer, but since I was going camping... I had to bring along a lot of random items (hot pads, tin foil, sleeping bag, pillow, etc.).  

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      Our first stop was Crater Lake, Oregon.  Crater Lake has a pretty cool history.  About 8,000 years ago, a huge volcano erupted and caused a mountain to collapse.  When the land collapsed, it made a big sunken land area called a caldera.  Thousands of years of rain and snow eventually filled up the the empty spots and made Crater Lake.  Actually, it is the deepest lake in the USA.  And, because it is fed only by rain and snow melt, it is also considered to be the world's cleanest body of water.  One of the spectacular things about Crater Lake is its color.  At almost any time of day, the lake is a beautiful, sapphire blue...which makes it photograph so well!  

       Interestingly enough, even though it is June, there is still a LOT of snow at Crater Lake.  The circumference of the lake is about 33 miles, though more than half is still snow covered, and thus you can't drive or hike (safely) around it.   C.L. is also one of the USA's snowiest places too with an average of 673 inches per year.  I can't even imagine that!   It was odd because the air temperature was 65 or 70, but there was still snow... and lots of it!  Notice my t shirt and flip flops... not your typical snow gear!

  

This is Erin- my BFF from San Diego.  She flew north from San Diego to Portland and I flew west from Milwaukee to Portland.  We met up at the airport to begin our adventure.  

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So, the lake was at the summit, but we camped down at the base of the mountains.  There was still snow there, but much less.  You can see snow to the left of our tent.  Also, even while camping... I still found time to READ!  That's me snuggling up with my book before bed.  What book are you reading?? :)  

 Food is very important to campers because it gives them the energy they need to hike, explore and set up camp.  I took a lot of food pictures, mostly because I was impressed with our creative meals.  Also, Erin is a vegetarian, which made our menu a bit more unique.  Night one in Crater Lake, we had grilled cheeses (see photo on left). Night two we had scrambled eggs and potatoes (right).  And of course... S'mores.  

 Now, while we didn't anticipate bears, we had to be cautious because we knew they were in the area.  Basically, we had to keep a very clean camp site, free from crumbs, food scraps or garbage.  Also, any time we weren't cooking, we had to keep our food safe in the trunk of the car where a bear couldn't smell it.  Thankfully we didn't have any run-ins... except for Yogi and Boo Boo.  

Though we were safe from bears, we were thick into deer and elk country.  This little guy was right next to our tent while we were making dinner.  He stopped to look back at me just long enough to snap his photo.   In addition to deer, we saw squirrels, lots of birds and wayyy too many mosquitos.