camper envy...

take a look at this camper.  it's a 1953

royal spartanette. the kitchen, the green

booth, the stove, the nightstands in the bedroom,

all of the WOOD! all yours for just under $20,000.

i'm pretty sure my silly cars couldn't get 

two blocks with this attached. i would

find a nice spot by a river and stay a while.

abiquiu...

pitter pat.  my heart.  abiquiu.

easter camping...

the weather has been sending us invitations 

to camp that we would have been foolish to ignore. 

we pulled the kids out of school early, hooked up

the pop up, and headed south to the llano river.

after the brutal summer last year it was wonderful

to see it up and crystal clear. we swam for days, watched

the kids ride the rapids again and again,

cooked, read books and magazines, hiked, and laid

around in the shade and sun. 

i'll take an easter smelling like river and sun

over an itchy 'ol dress any day.

  

  

1)old sesquicentennial flag chris found at an antique store.

2)cutest folks i've ever met.

3)roxie showing off her chillin' skills.

4)morning dishes by the well.

5)all. you. need.

6)one of the spots on earth where the ground feels most solid beneath me.

7)the moon and river at midnight.

8)pure d love.

what a difference a season makes...

we recently went back here.  

there's not another human as far as you can see.

phones don't work.  internet nope. tv nowhere in sight.

it poured while we were there.  hurricane style.  

we kept a fire in the fireplace, played boardgames,

ate, drank, ate.  when the rain would slow in between

downpours, we would run to the hot tub and soak in 

the steamy quiet.  the kids were even more quiet

than normal. at times. we watched the river rise

at least 10 feet overnight.  sitting in the

hot tub we heard a giant sound moving towards us.

ripping, grating, cracking, splashing.

we held our breath and hoped whatever it was

wasn't hungry. 

an entire tree had let go of it's hold on the bank

and was slowly and with great effort on the river's

part, making it's way downriver.  we watched and

listened to it's unlikely journey until it was

gone from sight.

the rain finally ended our last day and in time

for a final sunset salute. 

ahoy....

last summer we sat on rocks in the middle of this..

house and tub perched up on the mountainside.  the river is down below. 

whew..the weekend.

that was one long ass week.  

we have a three day weekend and i will

be spending the majority of it outdoors.

could definitely use a dose of this...

i wish i knew where this was.  

anyone?

fantastical

fantastical:def., may connote unrestrained extravagance in conception or merely ingenuity of decorative invention.

i would assert that here; the shoe fits.

i stumbled across this article today. the cockamamy 

house first caught my eye and then i read about the man, mr. smith,and the family behind the house and that's what really left an impression. he died from a fall off a high balcony during the perpetual construction. the house still has sculptures he built, left behind, undisturbed.  

he hauled every bit of that wood himself in a horse trailer. those aren't small timbers. 

that brought back a memory of a place in utah with the inspired name, 'hole in the rock'.  i was moving a friend

to seattle from texas and we were in no hurry to get there.

we stopped and took the two dollar tour.  a man named albert

spent 12 years dynamiting a 14 room home into the rock.

like mr. smith, he died during and from the everlasting 

building of his home. it was a couple of decades ago, but

i still remember a creepy doll collection and that 

albert was an amateur taxidermist.  there was a stuffed

donkey standing next to me during one of the longer 

recitations from the tour guide.  it's bottom had this 

little oval leather patch over it with a slit.  

maybe that's how they filled it with 'stuffing'?

fire damaged timbers mr. smith gathered and hauled to 

the house site with a horse trailer.

a sculpture left in the house by mr. smith.

graciousness...

my brother's wife's great aunt left her place in texas

in a public trust when she died rather than keeping 

it in private hands.  it's still in the care of the 

family as the board of directors.

when my uncle died this year, my twin brothers and i met

for the funeral and stopped by the land on our

drive home. it's so quiet and isolated it feels

like a pioneer time warp.

 1.the cabin looking over the lake

2. fireplace from outside

3.from the lake

4.sweet split rail zig zag fence

indian blessing birthday...

two beautiful things collided last week:

roxie's birthday and three straight days of spring-

like weather.

spending that time indoors would have been

criminal so we loaded up the camper (the nights

were cold and we were thankful to have heat) and

went to mother neff, texas' very first state park.

maybe you know this already, but if you visit a sacred

place on your actual birthday there is a very good

chance you will leave with a blessing.

this cave still has blackened ceilings from  

tonkawa fires hundreds and hundreds of years ago. 

the morning of roxie's birthday we packed a lunch and 

hiked to the cave. she found a necklace made

from seeds and leather in a small woven basket.

the birthday blessing legend is clearly real(wink).

a chilly first night called for supper in the camper. 

 

sweet joe, taking in the sun and quiet.

oklahoma, take two...

i would imagine it's the rare occasion that you hear

someone say, 'want to see my oklahoma vacation photos?'

all the same, here i am doing it for the second time in as

many months. i rented this cabin back during the oven

blast days of summer in anticipation of fall color and

the tease of frost in the mornings.

(we found a swing set tucked in the forest)

(handsome pops taking it in)

(hike to the river at dusk)

we were less than an hour from the arkansas border

in the ouachita mountains, which go against the norm

in north america by running east/west rather than north/south,

wrinkling the land through arkansas and oklahoma.

a combination of the drought and lack of cold snaps

had us missing any real autumn color.

all the more reason to go back soon.

each cabin is secreted in so that from the hot tub,

deck, bathroom window, you-name-it, there is not another

human sign in sight as far as the eye can see.

we hiked to the river after breakfast and lunch

and again at dusk to bid farewell to the day and

never saw another soul.

oklahoma IS ok.....

with school about to begin, i was looking for a

quick, cabin get away that was within 4 hours of home.

we had only enough time to make a drink and send

the kids off exploring the woods before chris'

patronus appeared.

the evenings actually cooled to a reasonable hot tub

temperature. nothing but trees and twilight and cicadian

songs.

the river was the kind of cold that makes you holler

and nothing but gasps come out. we were

covered with perpetual goose bumps and

it was still hot enough outside to dry your

clothes before the next dash to swim.

mission accomplished: final summer send off.

road trip with three kids short enough

to avoid straight jackets and earplugs.

recharging that vital part of us

that can only be reached by the outdoors.

big rock falls...

(one of my less-bad dives)

during the week in belize, we visited big rock falls

more than once. by horseback and then by mountain bikes.

if i hadn't made such poor lemongrass mojito decisions the night

before our final day there, we would have gone again.

no worries, the hot pool set me right.

big rock falls is within the mountain pine ridge forest reserve

and just downstream from our room on the privassion creek.

the falls certainly make it seem 'more river and less creek'

and it was one of my favorite things we did.

the pools below the falls are very deep and i was coerced by

our guide, melvin, and chris to jump in from varying heights.

the 15-20 foot jump was my personal finale and

i felt no need to do anything else but sit in the

spray below the waterfall and try to catch full breaths.

the spray was so thick and cool that it took some doing.

i may not have mastered rock diving, but i'm pretty

sure i brought home some of those falls in my lungs

and my heart. i. can't. wait. to. breathe. it. again!

(horseback to falls. the pines are just beginning to recover

from the pine beetle devastation.)

(bliss!)

Blancaneaux

i'm not sure that i have the words to do justice to the

way i felt about belize and this trip.

i would stand on our balcony over the falls,

and get choked up and teary. chris would look at me

and nod his head that he understood.

then in the middle of a perfect silence a laugh

would burst out because if it stayed inside, well,

that would be silly!

3 kids, 40 years on earth, 10 years of marriage.

something to celebrate. and we DID!

we did so many things while we were there, so i'll not

overwhelm and will start with blancaneaux.

chris riding bike into the property. we took the bikes to big

rock falls for a swim. a great free excursion.

the view from our villa of the property.

that's the rice house by the falls where we had

dinner by candlelight on our last night.

our villa above the falls and the last villa

on the property before the hydroelectric dam

that supplies the electricity.

our private plunge pool. i could

look out over the falls from here. ridiculous!

a sweet spot half-way down our balcony stairs

looking down river toward....nothing but more falls.

one of our favorite places. the hot pool.

it's lush and the entire week we never shared it

with anyone. 100 degrees of complete joy. embryonic.

blancaneaux's pool. the entire week we were here we

only encountered two other people in the pool.

after hiking or biking, we would jump in.

if i did a loud enough cannonball, someone usually

heard us and would bring us a cold beer.

imagine that?! someone bringing ME something.

the organic terraced gardens where the veggies are grown

for breakfast lunch and dinner. smelly, buggy, and beautiful.

i could've pulled weeds there for days.

caddo...

Civilization is the limitless multiplication of

unnecessary necessities.

mark twain