Aspirational…
Epic capture in Arches National Park, Grand County, Utah
Photography by Zach Cooley Photo
Check out his Insta, he’s a talented artisan photographer
https://www.instagram.com/zachcooleyphoto/?hl=en
#wordlesswednesday
What a beautiful boy! He was almost completely camouflaged, resting in the cool grass, enjoying a late afternoon snack. Those antlers are magnificent, aren’t they?
I could have stayed there for hours, watching him in silence, but I had to go. He didn’t seem too concerned and kept eating and eating.
For #throwbackthursday, this is one of my most favorite places to camp and hike.
Great Basin National Park is in Nevada. At 10,000 ft., Wheeler Peak is one of the tallest peaks in the country. It’s full of bristlecone pines and turkeys and solitude and serenity.
Here’s a beautiful alpine lake:
#ThrowbackThursday
One of my favorite places to camp and hike.
Love the rocks #JoshuaTree
…is right here, hiking in the desert.
#WordlessWednesday
One of my favorite places on earth, and yes, the water really is that beautiful turquoise color.
McWay Falls is an 80-foot-tall waterfall on the coast of Big Sur in central California that flows year-round into the Pacific Ocean from McWay Creek in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, about thirty-seven miles south of Carmel.
During high tide, it’s a tidefall, a waterfall that empties directly into the ocean.
The waterfall poured directly into the ocean until a massive fire, landslide, and highway reconstruction project near the area in 1983-84 filled the cove with enough material to form a sandy beach several dozen feet out.
The falls, creek, and canyon are named after Christopher McWay, an early settler and farmer from New York state who arrived in the area with his son Christopher Jr. around 1874.
The park itself is named after Julia Pfeiffer Burns (1868-1928), a local and legendary early pioneer and resident who impressed Helen Brown and had run a ranch in McWay canyon with her husband, John B. Burns.
#WordlessWednesday
Pinnacles National Park is an American national park protecting a mountainous area located east of the Salinas Valley in Central California, eighty miles southeast of San Jose.
Could the sky have been any more blue?
#WordlessWednesday
In the blink of an eye.
It’s true. You never know when the unexpected will occur.
We get up in the morning, drink our coffee and make plans for the day. Those plans NEVER include an auto accident or other unforeseen catastrophe.
I love to make lists:
-Traders for tofu, coffee, ginger tea…
-Go to the nursery
-Pick up prescription
-TJ Maxx
-Dentist @11am
Nowhere on any list does anyone ever pencil in, “be involved in a freak accident on a mountain road”. Or is that just me? Maybe a fatalist WOULD include that in a daily schedule. I dunno…maybe now I will.
I wasn’t the driver so I was literally paying zero attention to the road.
I was looking at all the photos I took and remembering how I got altitude sickness on the way up the twisty windy road and vomited everywhere (ick), but now we were relaxed and dusty and exhausted but happy to be heading back home after a few days of camping and hiking where we saw lots of deer and other animals.
I was startled to hear, “Oh, shit!” and the car swerved a bit and then we felt two large bumps that tossed us about and a large crash.
We pulled over to the narrow shoulder on the two-lane highway. Doing a quick triage, I determined that everyone was unharmed.
I turned around and saw a large piece of a car that we had apparently smashed into, but didn’t see a car. At that moment, a highway patrol car pulled up about fifty feet behind us. I ran out of the car and flagged down the patrolman. Fortuitously, he had been driving that way as part of his routine.
That’s when I saw it.
The deer.
The poor dear deer.
The poor dear dead deer.
When I wasn’t paying attention, this was how the scenario unfolded.
A deer ran across the road, the big truck in front of us hit the deer which caused his front bumper to fall off. That horrible man kept going; he never even stopped. The impact must have killed the deer instantly. We were unable to avoid hitting it as there was traffic all around and nowhere to go. So the two bumps we felt was us running over the already dead three hundred pound deer.
The patrolman said that was the third one that day. (There are lots of deer and not enough natural predators.)
Our vehicle was pretty messed up but it still ran and was OK to drive the rest of the way home but it was in the shop for three weeks.
After the poor dear deer was moved to the side of the road, I kneeled down and petted his head and told him how very sorry I was that he died.
I guess the moral of the story is that you never know when something bad is going to happen. As much as I like to predict all outcomes, sometimes it’s not possible to gaze in a crystal ball and see the future.
Honestly though, what kind of a horrible person hits an animal and doesn’t stop???
Out of respect for the deceased, I won’t post a pic of him, but here are other deer enjoying life.
The Laguna Mountains are only about an hour away east from the ocean in San Diego.
Most people go there when we have snow — at 6000 feet, it’s the highest point in the county.
It’s possible to surf in the morning, cross-country ski (or hike) in the afternoon, and drop down into the shimmering desert to experience the best of everything SoCal has to offer.
Late May to mid-June is the time of year when color explodes in the mountains and it’s not too hot to enjoy a strenuous hike while the air cools down comfortably at night.
It’s easy to get here: east on Highway 8 to Sunrise Highway.
We went mid-week before schools were out for summer vacation and we had the mountain pretty much entirely to ourselves.
Fragrant pines, Engelmenn oaks, wildflowers; deep blue sky with a few white puffy clouds.
Amazing…gorgeous…magnificent…breathtaking…
There aren’t enough adjectives to describe the spectacular views.
We hiked Desert View Trail and Big Laguna Trail, about ten miles or so.
It was truly heaven on earth, one of those experiences where whispering was the only way to communicate-we didn’t want to mar the ultimate reverence for nature.
These are only a sampling of the hundred-plus pics I snapped and none of them do justice to this paradise.
California is beautiful.
Everyone should go on a road trip vacay and drive down (or up) the coast through the central coast along Highway One.
It’s spectacular.
The scenery is amazing and the views are breathtaking, BUT driving around Big Sur, the twistywindytwolanehighway is SCARY, more so if you’ve previously experienced a near death event.
One one side, there’s the vertigo-inducing views of the Pacific Ocean beneath a precipitous embankment, and on the other side, close enough so that if you open a window and reach out, you could almost touch the mountain.
“Mom, why is your lip bleeding?”
“Because I’m biting it to keep from screaming.”
“SLOW DOWN. SLOWDOWNSLOWDOWN!”
“See the red lights on the car in front of us? That is your very obvious CLUE that you need to react and SLOW DOWN.”
“Sssllllooowwwwdddooowwwnnnn…” says the crazy backseat driver.
“Heeheehee.” That’s Angel Boy chuckling at my terror.
“How about leaving a little more distance between you and the car in front of us?”
“Would that be too much to ask?”
My right thigh was becoming numb as I constantly phantom-braked during that entire death defying journey.
I clutched the dash so tightly, I thought they’d have to pry my fingers off of it.
In the back seat, DIL was listening to music and texting, observing this exchange between mother and son.
(I think she was laughing, too.)
My son lives his entire life by multi-tasking every single moment of every single day.
Even while driving, he’s eating, talking to his GPS, and carrying on two conversations.
His new name is Dr. Distracto, because the ONE thing he needed to concentrate on — DRIVING — what should have been his primary focus — was third or fourth on the list of what garnered his attention.
“Geez, pay attention to the traffic, would you?”
“STOOPPPPP!”
I was hyperventilating, fanning my face, telling him, “Do you want to give me a heart attack?”
Remember that film I liked, Guilt Trip, with Barbara Streisand and Seth Rogan?
(Read my review HERE of the best Jew-mom film EVER.)
This was OUR version of a road trip.
It was actually pretty funny. In reality, my son is a good driver in spite of being an absent minded professor.
When it was all over and we were once again on wide, straight roads, I apologized for my bout of insanity and praised his patience and even tempered disposition.
I highly recommend camping with one’s adult child and spouse.
I haven’t heard about too many other people who’ve done this. Let me know if you have and maybe we could start a club.
Popping a squat side-by-side on the trail with one’s DIL makes for a great bonding moment.
They had thoughtfully packed two tents, a huge family-sized Hobitat, and a smaller one in case I wanted to sleep in my own tent, and not with them.
I chose the “mother-in-law” unit because I didn’t want to disturb anyone or crawl over them if I had to get up and to to the bathroom at 3 a.m.
Two highlights of our road trip were day hikes to Jade Cove and Julia Pfeiffer State Park.
I’ve always wanted to explore Jade Cove but I had no idea that it was going to become the challenge of a lifetime.
I had no idea that the only way to get down to where the jade could be found was by rope. THIS was where the EMPOWERMENT really kicked in.
NO WAY was I gonna do that.
Nope. Never. Not in a million years.
It should have been an absolute dealbreaker, but my desire for jade and serptentine treasures made me think I MIGHT be able to take the risk.
It would have been such a shame to come all this way and give in to my fears.
My son patiently coaxed me and DIL all the way and made sure we safely descended the nearly vertical bluffs, while he scrambled down like a mountain goat.
I AM EMPOWERED.
(My hair looks HORRIBLE, but I’m grinning from ear to ear.)
The Jade Cove Trail is a simple flat path that loops out to the coast with a steep but short path down to the water where you can hunt for jade (please follow local regulations about collecting rocks.)
From the top.
Animal print kelp?
Treasures from Jade Cove!
After that, we drove to Julia Pfieffer State Park for a day hike. This state park is named after Julia Pfeiffer Burns, a well respected pioneer woman in the Big Sur country. The park stretches from the Big Sur coastline into nearby 3,000-foot ridges. It features redwood, tan oak, madrone, chaparral, and an 80-foot waterfall that drops from granite cliffs into the ocean from the Overlook Trail. A panoramic view of the ocean and miles of rugged coastline is available from the higher elevations along the trails east of Highway 1.
Overlook Trail and the cove with famous turquoise water.
McWay Falls, one of only two coastal waterfalls in California, where McWay Creek falls 80 feet over a granite cliff onto a sandy beach, or at high tide directly into the Pacific Ocean.
McWay Creek
Majestic redwoods
Squint your eyes and you can see Angel Boy and DIL at the base of the gigantic redwoods.
Bottom line: Empowerment is empowering. At any age.
Read the rest of my Empowerment Series here:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Enchanted Seashells by Princess Rosebud 
