A second serving of Soup!

I just made it!   The deadline to sign up for the second round of Lori Anderson's Bead Soup Blog party is today!!  I had fun checking out everyone's designs and working out my own last time around.

Check out Lori's Blog for the info

I do love dandelions.

I need some blog therapy-- so don't read this if you want to judge. I really mean it, I'm not in a people pleasing kind of mood :-)

Feeling sad these past few weeks- I haven't been able to get in the studio and do that thing clay that I love. My work space has been taken over by tons of stuff so that we could make room for another family member to move into the house. Married life has not been wonderful. I am spending all of my work time at my brother's new business, since I am so proud of him and want it to succeed. I am totally confused about the BOC blog. I don't want to do any of it anymore, but I'm thinking it's too late to become a hermit. I'm taking the day off from my brother's business tomorrow (really I am supposed to have off, but somehow I feel guilty about it. I am really only SUPPOSED to work there 2 days a week, not the 4 or 5 I have been putting in )

I hope that spending time on my own business will help even me out again, and bring me back to a good attitude. It should at least help with the nagging TO-DO list that keeps getting bigger and is not getting crossed off. Crossing things off my list usually helps lighten my mind.

I can hear thunder rolling in. There is a lot of pressure that needs to be released out there. I'm feeling it too.

And I do love dandelions.

Petrified Wood Co.

We tried to check out the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona last week. To our disappointment, we drove right up to a sign that said CLOSED.
Instead we found The Petrified Wood Company, a Rock shop right near the entrance to the park. This piece of Amethyst was huge! There is Olive, my lap dog for the 7 days we drove east.

Petrified wood

Grrr! They had such a great display at this store! -- Really beautiful stuff!

Wood

And more wood--- I love the colors. They come from minerals. My mind was matching them to the ingredients in my glaze colors.

On and Off Route 40 and Route 66 in Arizona

Near Petrified Forest National Park
Dinosaurs!

Meteor City Trading Post

Hiking the Grand Canyon--- Life is good!

Psst--- I drove a Porsche for the first time today. This is our ride. Nadine wasn't feeling well today, so it was just me and my backpack.
This was my first view of the Grand Canyon. These points have such a drop off! I walk fast, and I came in right at the points were you can hug the rail and look straight down.

That's when I decided that sitting down on the stairs and hugging a pole would be a good idea for a minute. At this area birds were zooming through the canyon. Dizzy ;-)

This is the area where I ate an apple and wrote postcards,

on this wonderful rock.

I took the Bright Angel trail. I said, "Canyon, could you please kick my XXX today?"
It did.

Here is part of the trail. I don't know if you can see any people, but they looked tiny over there!

This is part way down.

It was 1.5 miles to the rest area where I stopped. 1.5 miles doesn't sound far, but it was a trial timed at 1.5 to 3 hrs. I did it in 2.

Lowest spot I got to :-)

Pretty deep.

It was longer on the way up.

But I made it.

9 miles--Can you tell I'm tired?

6 miles were paved.

I've arrived

Yay! I am on Vacation! I arrived in Los Angeles on Friday evening. I stayed over with some extended family and we packed up the car for our trip to across the country.

FOOD--- it is amazing how it makes you feel. We ate the most delicious homemade Miso Soup to start our day. It was delicious Japanese Great Grandma--made soup! Tofu, egg, sweet potato, greens, onion :-) And we even were given wonderful seaweed sticky rice for our dinner. And imagine, all I could think about when I arrived in LA was Mexican food. Maybe we'll have some today :-)

Here is the big fish Koi Pond at great grandma Peggy's house. They were huge! They have a wonderful grape vine roofed pond and so much personality.

I took tons of mountain photos for my husband and oldest daughter who are rock and geography lovers.

All kinds of mountains and rocks---

Palm Tree

Again. The desert was blooming with millions of yellow and orange and violet flowers. There were brilliant Fuchsia cactus flowers, and Dark Red spiky tipped cactus. I picked up a postcard to identify them all.

We drove into an area of Lava sheets. So what do I do? --Hop out and grab a tiny piece for my kiddies (and Husband). Hey, I know what they love :-)

Here is where I found it, amongst these wonderful yellow flowers.

Mountains

And different mountains

And more--- when I was flying in, I looked down at the mountains and thought how they much they look like the same patterns in puddles and stream banks.

Has anyone ever been to the Franklin Institute in Philly? There is an exhibit where you watch water re-shape a sandy-rocky river bed. I thought about how wonderful that demonstration is.

Erosion-- A wonderful force. This morning I am waking up at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. I can't wait to get out and walk around!