May

So, yes, missed May too. But it was a really eventful month! I turned old! We went to Washington DC! We went backpacking! Korin, Brian and Charli came to visit! We ate Dim Sum! My Grandma went to Utah! See? Action-packed!

The backpacking is the freshest in my mind right now, so we'll start there. We met Nathan in Canyonlands National Park, where we wanted to hike Salt Creek Canyon. We were able to get the last series of back-country campsite reservations available for Memorial Day weekend. Lucky, lucky! It was an incredible hike. Petroglyphs, ruins, arches, pottery shards everywhere. That's not even mentioning the cool beasties, and that it was spring, and the wildflowers were blooming. Here's pictures of some of the cool things:

The first day was the day of ruins and petroglyphs. Seriously, there were ruins everywhere. Some of them were close enough to the ground that you could climb up and walk around in them (Carefully!). The second day was when the mosquitoes found us, and that was a little unpleasant. But the desert was blooming, there was globemallow, lupine, and yucca everywhere. Brent saw a black bear, and we saw tiger salamanders and their larvae. We missed the water source we were supposed to fill up at though, and ended up having to ask some campers at a 4WD campsite if we could have some of theirs. Once we were done panhandling the water, we found the greatest campsite ever. At this point the trail went up off the canyon floor onto the slickrock through a series of ladders. We camped about 800 feet above the canyon, and were treated to the most glorious sunset I've seen in a while. And there were even more ruins close by!

Anyway, it was a highly successful backpacking trip, and a lovely way to spend a birthday, except for the mosquitoes.

Earlier in May, Brent and I spent a weekend in Washington DC. We wandered the Mall from end to end, saw all the monuments you're supposed to, went to an airshow at Andrews Air Force Base, wandered around the Washington DC Botanical Garden, and went through the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. It was a packed couple of days.


Korin, Brian and Charli came out to visit one weekend. We had a lovely time showering Charli with attention and buying her pony rides that she didn't want to go on. Mom and Grandma cooked up an entire Hawaiian Luau to celebrate, and everything was so delicious.

I know that you're all terribly worried about my stocktank/gardens, but have no fear, they're just fine. Brent and I increased our square footage by adding another whole stocktank, and I filled it with tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, and cantaloupe.