stories to follow--ideally tomorrow over an almond croissant and wonderful coffee.
we'll see if i'm lucky enough to find a web cafe with all that i desire...
i just had the most amazing day in san francisco
a full heart.
oh my my.
love,
jenny
________________________________________
monday sept 19 2011:
ok! here i am. it feels so weird to think about what day it is. i haven't really needed to keep track. which is pretty amazing.
the freedom is truly intoxicating.
today, i slept in. it's monday. i slept in. no work to go to, only what I want to do ahead of me.
only what i plan ahead of me. there are no true obligations here. only pure desire.
wow
my plans for today included resting in.
washing up
get directions for the places i want to go in san fran, checking them on my atlas map.
( i want to mention here that I am really bad at directions/ getting lost, so this is a triumph for me.
to be able to get around on my own. no help. not getting lost.)
i've started the journey and so far, so good. already thrilled with myself.
are my standards to low? hahah.
ok, so the other things i am doing today-
find web cafe. plan next portion of trip. get directions from one thing to another.
work on blog
go to art store!!!! yayyayayyayayayyyayayayyayayayyyayaya. love love art stores.
the pencils... the paper.... the possibilities! whoo hoo. hope it's great.
i'm checking out this place called FLAX, which i got a recommendation for from anne.
go to electronic store. buy larger memory card for my camera.
ideally write some letters
call a few people
eat great food. ideally sushi later today since i had a pretty heavy breakfast and
loooooooooooooovvvveee sushi.
watch sunset somewhere. ideally at the coast.
ok, so back to business...
see adventures below.
i put in a few pictures here that i didn't have the luxury of uploading before. this is one of them.
this is hans.
he's 84.
he is dutch.
he jumps out of planes
he loves to white water raft
he comes every year to utah on vacation
so much so, that a restaurant there named a great dessert after him.
the description is shown below.
here's a link to hans's practicing skydiving:
here's his first jump:
he told me i could search on youtube for it and he was right. just found those links. amazing.
that crazy dutchman! hans was very nice to talk to. interested in talking, but not pushy.
while i was talking to hans, mark was talking to the couple next to him who were doing a very similar trip as we were doing, lots of the same places.
this is a place mark found out about by talking to that couple. i found out about it by talking to hans.
we went on a drive after leaving the restaurant down this street.
it was mind boggling. steep rock faces on both sides of the road, a river down the center.
this is a big spot for rock climbing.
in this pic i am feeling the rock.
sounds weird, but normal if you've ever really rock climbed.
"where can i hold onto?"
the street is called: potash road.
it's also owned by the department of the interior.
they got all the good stuff man...
this is a little hut under the rock ledge at the top of a Butte. this is a place where native americans would store grains.
this is a picture of our campsite at lake powell. i loved this campsite. it was warm, the sky was clear, etc.
just another pic of my appreciation for this area.
this is a pic of the off road trucks that took us to antelope. yeah buddy!
and here we are again, back at our journey down the grand canyon.
witness the progression of pics... wow, it was beautiful...
that's mark down there at the end. that little spot. on the trail. takes my breath away to see it again.
getting tired and hot now... and feeling the weight of the pack.
we arrived at the bottom of the grand canyon. here's the sign for the Phantom Ranch, the little outpost/ small accomidations located there. some people stay in the little cabins down there, but got a campsite on a creek. what a relief to see we had finally reached the bottom.
the 7 ish mile hike down the South Kaibab trail was more strenuous than i had anticipated.
when we were going down, we were GOING DOWN! and it was pretty hard on our joints and muscles.
It's a mile in elevation change from the rim of the grand canyon to the colorado river.
here's our campsite
here's the nice, cold creek with little cubbies where we could put out tired feet in and lay down in and feel much much more refreshed.
seeing the picture makes me want to go right back in again.
haha. makes me think of a discussion mark and i were having about how much we'd have to be paid to do the hike back up out of the canyon again right now...
i said i'd maybe do it for a 1000.00 dollars... but after our debate in the car, we landed on about 2000.00 would be a reasonable sum.
that gives you an idea of how hard it was to do... :))))
i'll take a second here again to say, if you want to do this-- you should train. like really train.
like be able to run 7 miles would be best. like 7 miles pretty regularly.
ok. onward.
this is the morning light in the canyon as we started our journey out.
here's the sign-- we went on the bright angel trail out of the canyon.
morning light falling into the canyon
tired tired tired.
all good though
half way point. another creak to rest your feet in. they advise you rest here for about an hour before continuing the journey.
people die doing this... hiking into the grand canyon.
it gets super hot.
we were really lucky and the day was pretty cool and overcast mostly, so we weren't in danger of heat stroke.
still. supposed to have had about a gallon of water by the time we reached this point.
we got pretty close to that.
the grind
this is a picture of the trail.
this is what we looked at from 7:00 am to about 2:00 pm. when we weren't looking up.
ahhh... look how far we've come!!!
see that squiggly line on the right, down in the bottom right ish corner of the picture,
that's the trail we came up!!
ugh. rough now.
whew! really close. pull up a smile.
show you're happy to be here! this is amaaaazzziinng.
started breathing easier. knew there was just about a mile to go to the top.
this was the last rest stop.
nice little resting spot mark found.
"let's take one more picture together before the top."
triumph!
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