Mattie on my bed in the new loft.

I headed up here on Saturday to check it out and meet Suzanne since she’s going to be out of town for the next couple of weeks or so.

When she’s here I’ll be staying here in a lovely loft a few nights a week with my dog, Mattie, and spending the rest of the time in Pueblo. This is going to be a very busy summer for me, and maybe, just maybe I’ll actually blog. (But it’s a big maybe)

Saturday evening was great, I got to meet everyone and get settled in a little bit. I talked with Suzanne about what projects I’ll be working on, and it looks like I’ll really get to be focused on spreading the message to my generation. We’ll be working on improving the facebook and creating some awesome YouTube videos.

Today Suzanne took the day off to enjoy a wonderful Colorado Sunday with her partner, Bob. So I had some free time to check out the area.

This was the first stop on our morning explorations. pretty nice view

I had a very nice morning exploring some of the San Juan National Forest with Mattie. We just took the truck and drove for a little while on 160. We went off on a couple of dirt access roads to wander around and take pictures. The first stop had a nice little view point.

We continued on, and ended up by a little river called Piedra. There were some campsites that we were near, but we just hung out on the side of the road to take pictures.

Ghost Mattie

This week’s Gizmodo shooting challenge is to use a 1second shutter speed to photograph something. I took a few different pictures, but it was really bright outside. I don’t have a neutral density filter or anything. I ended up just taking pictures in the shade. They weren’t any good though. My favorite one was of Mattie. I figured that if I had her attention on a treat, she could probably sit more still than most dogs for a second. I was putting the treats on her nose and then making her wait while I took the picture. One of the times, she cheated, popping it off of her nose about half a second into the shot. The result was a mostly in focus dog, that disappeared out of the frame, leaving a transparent dog-ghost over the tree background. It was pretty cool.

The pretty meadow

Then we turned around and started heading back to Bayfield, but we weren’t done exploring. We went up another access road. For a while there was nobody on it, and it was quite beautiful. There were lovely wildflower meadows on the side of the road for camping, but they weren’t official “campsites,” if you know what I mean. Eventually we caught up to this white pickup truck that had four dogs in the back, and I could’ve sworn one of them was Mattie. Except for the big bushy cattle-dog tail that Mattie is so deprived of. We drove behind them for a while, then pulled off to enjoy one of the meadows.
It was gorgeous, with thousands of little yellow wildflowers and occasional patches of purple and blue. A large tree stood in the middle of the meadow, taller than the others, but distanced from them. After hanging out for a little while we hopped back in the truck to actually head back to Bayfield. I was quite low on gas, and coasted most of the way down the dirt road. Made it back pretty quick. Stopped for lunch at my favorite dual-fast-food-restaurant combination ever: Long John Silver’s and A&W. I just love the LJS chicken. The crunchy coating (and the little crunchies that they give you) are just delicious. Top that off with a nice A&W root beer from the tap, and you’ve got one of my favorite unhealthy lunches. I’ve missed this restaurant combo since moving to Pueblo. It was an immediate favorite after they finished building one in Bakersfield, and today’s lunch was a welcome a blast from the past.

After lunch I watched some footage and took a nice afternoon nap. That’s when Mattie decided she would jump off the ladder from the loft. I’m glad she’s okay! Now I’m off to bed, and I blocked off the ladder with some boxes (she could get over them if she really wanted, but hopefully it will discourage her.) Hopefully tonight she will refrain from barking at every noise. She’s not used to sleeping in a house with other people in other rooms. She’s a good guard dog, she is.

Now, I’m in Golden, here with Mike, ready for bed. We had a nice afternoon. We went to check out Red Rocks, and there was a show playing tonight that we didn’t know about. Parking was free, and without buying tickets, we checked out the show. There’s a hill nearby, and though you can’t see incredibly well from the top, you can hear everything just fine. We sat up there for a while, and listened to the music, but we hiked down before it got dark. It was a good time, and today was a good day.

Also, of note, I got 107/100 on my Psychology test today.

It rained, and the 7 year old next door threw his ball up on the roof. I told him I’d get it when it stopped raining. I proceeded to give him a hard time about throwing the ball up there, but he insisted that “it bounced”. I went up there to look for it, but it certainly wasn’t up there. I guess he found it though, somehow it ended up on the roof again.

Dad grilled up a nice tri-tip, and we had a nice dinner. We watched a documentary on Netflix: A Life Without Pain. It was about a few girls with congenital insensitivity to pain. So these girls can feel texture and pressure, but not pain. It was interesting and sad to see the challenges that these children and their families have gone through. Pain is one more thing to be thankful for.

So for now, I’m off to bed. I have a test tomorrow, and then after that I’m heading up to Golden to spend the weekend with Mike. Life is pretty good.

Write every day, even if it’s just a little bit.
Do my best in school.
Practice lucid dreaming.
Learn something every day.
Improve my physical health and well-being.

I will come up with more goals as I go, but working towards these things should be a good start. This blog should help me to write every day, even if I don’t have enough time to write a lot. Doing my best in school will take more time out of my day, but in the end it should be worth it. Practicing lucid dreaming will hopefully allow me to “gain” some time at night. Every day, I want to learn something. I want to look something up, practice a skill, try something new, and improve my knowledge base every day. I want to improve my body as well. I want to gain more endurance, strength, and coordination to improve myself overall. I want to become more fit, and toned.

A recent step towards becoming more fit has been the purchase of a Nintendo Wii, and Wii Fit. The Wii Fit is a fun way to squeeze a little bit of exercise into my day. Spending some time every day playing balance games, and doing yoga in front of the television is certainly not the most ambitious exercise regimen, but it’s something. It’s become somewhat of a daily family time. Everyone goes downstairs at some point in the evening to take turns doing the ski slalom course, or swordfighting on Wii Sports Resort.

Hopefully working towards these goals will help me improve myself as a whole, and I’m looking forward to each opportunity to do so.

I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to write about, I imagine this blog will mostly be a journal for myself. If I were to guess, the content of this blog will be the content of my life. Daily stories, adventures, challenges, and outlooks. It will contain my attempts to compose and organize, to communicate my thoughts and my ideas.

I’m pretty sure that my outlook on the world is an unusually positive one. I do my best to appreciate every moment, and I enjoy most of them. I think having a good attitude is important for every situation. The problem I have, is that I’m all optimism, and no action. I have a goal, and it is a simple one: to try harder at everything I do.

Throughout my life, I’ve seldom tried harder than necessary to get by. I manage to be where I am based on my personality, my intelligence, and my good test taking skills. My goal is very simple, and I just need to motivate myself to do it. I’m hoping this blog will be a step for me, something that I need to put an effort into, every day. Something that I have chosen to do, something I’m doing for myself. There should be no reason for me not to try my hardest at everything I do, especially at the things I’ve chosen to do for myself.

For now, it’s late, and I have school tomorrow. So I’m off to bed, and tomorrow is a new day demanding my best. Tomorrow I will set some more specific goals.

In total we’ve taken over a thousand pictures. These represent a selection of the pictures from events that have been discussed already in this blog. Pictures from the most recent week of our adventures will be posted later. (The San Diego trip)

TTFN.

The first full day in Bakersfield was good. (Thursday 20th) We were up early enough to enjoy breakfast from McDonald’s and relaxed throughout the morning. We hung out with Brandin and Ashley and had lunch at Super Tom’s with my Auntie Lil.  It’s been a long time since I’ve had a pastrami sandwich like that. It was pretty awesome. I shared it with Mike, but he didn’t seem to particularly care for it.

After lunch, Brandin and Ashley took us up the canyon that the Kern River flows through. We hiked down this little trail down to the river. At some point I slipped on the dirt and when I went to catch my balance, I happened to catch it with the lens of my camera. The dirt got up in the zoom mechanism, and the lens fails to zoom or focus.  The camera won’t take pictures, so now the only small camera we have is Mike’s.

Grass got under the lens.

Aside from that, the river was fun. We found some arrowheads and enjoyed the woods a little bit. While we were gone at the river Auntie Lil was cooking up some tuna casserole. I always ask for tuna casserole when I see Auntie Lil, because she makes it the best. It was fantastic, and she made two pans.

Friday was a pretty relaxing day. We spent the day socializing with my family. We chatted in the living room most of the time. I had lunch with my little cousin Amy. In the afternoon, my mom showed up from a few hours away. We all ate the second pan of tuna casserole together, and had a nice evening. We decided that Saturday would be spent at Six Flags Magic Mountain.

Ashley and I at Magic Mountain

We got up reasonably early, and spent the morning trying to get everyone ready. The drive to Magic Mountain was much shorter than I remember it being from when I was little. The day was a blast, we had flash passes, so even though it was busy, we got to ride most of the rides in the park. We got back to Bakersfield late, and slept in Sunday morning.

We lazed around the house, and I showed my mom and everyone some pictures on the computer.  Auntie Lil made BBQ chicken and scalloped potatoes and we took some pictures so we could have some of us together. After dinner and pictures we gave my mom a ride back to her house. We got back really late and slept in pretty late too.

We were planning on leaving, but the day got ahead of us. I went to have lunch at In-N-Out Burger with my friend Aimee, who I haven’t seen in forever. It was great to catch up with her. The rest of the day was pretty relaxed. We played lots of Liar’s Dice, and the whole day was pretty fun.

The In-N-Out was delicious, and we ate it on the road. After exploring a rest stop in the middle of nowhere, we switched drivers and I drove the rest of the way. The drive was pretty boring, and we were glad to be out of the car when we reached Bakersfield around 4pm.

Welcome to California

Mike and I hung out with my brother Brandin and my cousin Ashley for most of the afternoon. We just relaxed and took a break from driving. It was nice to see everyone, and we had pizza for dinner then went to bed.

The Lonely Tree

Hail in the parking lot

The view was spectacular, and we hiked down part of the way and took pictures.

Grand Canyon

We ate a snack around 10:30, and headed back up the trail. It sprinkled a little bit throughout the morning, and the weather was nice the whole time. It was warm, but not ridiculously hot, and there was plenty of shade on the trail. We got back to the car, and took our shoes off and set up the car for me to drive. We headed off towards Flagstaff.

When we were approaching the park exit, we realized that at the Sand Dunes, we needed our annual pass to leave, and we’d probably need it here too. The pass was hanging on the rearview mirror when we got to the car, and we couldn’t find it. We looked everywhere. The only conclusion we could come to was the wind (which was a little gusty) took the pass off of the mirror, or possibly the dashboard, and blew it away. The brochure that came with the pass clearly stated that it is not replaceable.

On our way out, they weren’t checking passes for exiting the park. I pulled over and approached one of the park rangers at the gate. It was a drive up gate, and she asked me to step away and approach in my vehicle. I got in the truck and pulled around and explained to her that we had the receipt for the purchase of the pass, and that the wind blew our pass out of the car, but unsurprisingly it didn’t fly, and we’ve now spent $80 and gotten $30 worth of park visits.

We were both very disappointed about this, and the drive from the Grand Canyon to Flagstaff was not spent in high spirits. We got to Flagstaff and stopped at a Safeway for some food. We bought some mayonnaise and some juice, and ate some tuna in the parking lot. We debated over what to do in the afternoon, and decided to drive about 60 miles to the Prescott National Forest. We were going to drive in from 40 and down a small road to the forest. We started driving on the road, which turned to a dirt road fairly quickly, and we kept driving for quite some time.

We were driving through a wooded area, so we just pretended it was the national forest, and drove off the road and parked behind some trees and made our own little campsite. We walked to the road and erased our tire tracks, then ate some more tuna, and played some more Blink. Tomorrow we’ll be in Bakersfield.

The drive was beautiful, and we stopped along the way to take pictures.

Blanca Peak

We were fifteen miles away from the Great Sand Dunes National Park, so we decided to pay it a visit. Instead of paying $6 for us to see the Sand Dunes, we bought an annual national parks pass for $80. I hope it pays off.

The Great Sand Dunes

We wanted to take a hike up one of the dunes, and then get back on the road. We both enjoyed the walk through Medano Creek. The water was shallow and cool, it felt nice on our bare feet.

We headed up a small dune just to get a feel for it. We played around on the top, rand down the dune, took lots of pictures. The weather was amazing. It was mid-morning to just before noon and the weather was warm, but not hot, and it wasn’t windy at all. We splashed around in the creek some more on our way back. We ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the parking lot, and got back on the road, with Mike driving.

Just after noon, we entered the Rio Grande National Forest. It was gorgeous. The roadway was lined with rock walls that had water trickling down them, and there were lots of amazing views.

Mike with the Rio Grande River

Around 3pm we stopped in Durango, which was originally going to be our final destination. We had planned to camp in the forest nearby, but decided to keep driving through to the Grand Canyon. We got some gas, and some McDonalds, and we switched drivers to give Mike some time in the passenger seat.

We were sad to see that Four Corners was closed for construction. It was just off the highway, and it would’ve been a nice spot to stretch our legs and take some pictures. Instead, we kept going. We entered New Mexico at 4:27, and Arizona at 3:28. The landscape was incredibly rocky, and awesome.

We got to the Grand Canyon at 7pm, got an evening view. We decided to camp in the Kaibab National Forest nearby and we found a decent spot with nobody nearby. We decided to have tuna for dinner, but I was disappointed when I realized the mayonnaise had not made it into the cooler. We poured some of the tuna water back into the tuna, and ate it on crackers like that. It wasn’t spectacular, but it wasn’t terrible either.

Evening View of The Grand Canyon