Instagram and the Alphabet Photo Challenge

I love Instagram!  I shared a few photos on it during our trip to Utah.

I thought it would be fun to share some of them on here.

Here's one from our day in Yankee Doodle Canyon.

That's our instructor/guide coming down after we did.  Spectacular scenery!

I noticed these daisies in town.  I'd never seen any like it.  Daisies are usually one per stem.

However, on these, they're in clusters with many on each stem.  Beautiful!

I made a soft, fluffy, comfy place for Penelope to hang out on one of the bunks in our RV.

It's right in front of a window that she had all to herself.  Such a cutie!

She was interested in our card game.  We joked that she wanted to play a game of "Go Fish".

We discovered these unique lights on the outside of a coffee shop.  Very cool!

We ate at Oscar's Cafe in Springdale a couple of times to celebrate our canyoneering accomplishments.  Their food is yummy and a frosty, cold glass of beer hit the spot.

We ate out on their patio where they had metal Kokopelli figures all around.

There's an awesome view across the street of massive Zion Sandstone that glows as the sun sets.

We can't wait to go back to South West Utah!

P.S.  I think I'm going to cheat on my Alphabet Photo Challenge.  I'm a week late for the letter "U" but I've posted lots of photos of Utah lately.  That counts, right?  And, now we're up to the letter "V".  I'm at a total loss of what to post for that.  I think I'm a little burned out on the challenge too.  So, I'm just going to say that we had a Very fun, Very challenging, Very amazing time when we were in Utah.
I think "W" shouldn't be too much of a challenge.  I'm sure not looking forward to X, Y and Z!

The Letters S and T

I'm late with my "S" and "T" posts for the Alphabet Photo Challenge.

But, I have a feeling I can figure out plenty of words that start with those letters from our trip.

More photos are on my previous post and will be on the next few as I blog about the trip.

Let's see what I can come up with for S...

Stupid government closure of the National Parks.

State of Utah that heroically Stepped in and opened the parks anyway.

Sandstone, Storms, Scary adventures, Sweet hubby, Stress, Sleep, Super yummy food,

Swell wine, Silly kitty and doggy that came with us, Souvenirs, Sunshine, discovery of

Sheplers western Store on the way there, cherry/chocolate/almond Scone, Some knitting,

Snow, Big Horn Sheep, Snake, homemade Soup on a cold night, Snuggling with my kitty

The above picture is the entrance to Zion National Park when we arrived.  Closed!

Luckily, we didn't need to go into the park to do canyoneering.  There's plenty of canyons outside of the park.  Besides, Zion National Park doesn't allow guided trips in the park like many of the other

national parks do.  Kind of weird, huh?  Several days into our trip, the Utah government struck a

deal with the federal government to open the park for up to 10 days.  Everyone was so happy!

The closure was hurting so many employees, neighboring businesses and tourists.

The town of Springdale quickly went from being like a ghost town to being filled with tourists.

Utah is filled with national parks and I'm sure this was a hard blow to their people and economy.  

I'm so glad the park is truly open again now and I hope it stays that way!

The picture below is from inside the park after it opened.  We were sitting next to the lodge 

watching a rainstorm.  Zion is such a wonderful and magical place!  I love it!

And, for the letter T...

Travel, Tram through the park, hot Tub, Tall rocks and cliffs, hot Tea, Taking pictures,

Trees, wild Turkeys, Trailer, Truck, Trails, Terrific coffee, Terrible Telephone signal,

pink Tumbleweeds along the road through the desert (really), Tired, Tackling fear

Wow!  I think I could go on and on.  That was easy and fun!

The Letter Q

The Alphabet Photo Challenge letter of the week is "Q".

"Q" on the old "Antiques" sign hanging over my staircase.

Some of the Quilts I have...

This is one that I have hanging on a ladder in my craft studio.

The crochet bed cover was made by my grandmother.

I got this one from a church rummage sale...

I made this one for my daughter when she moved away for college...

This is an old yoyo Quilt that my mom inherited and gave to me.

I have no idea how old it is.  It's really big!

 Here's another photo.  It has a lot of colors in it.

 I made this one to hang over the loft wall above our living room.

The colors are better in person.

Quinoa

 Quartz

Q-tips

Quick release on one of our bikes.

Quirky new wine bottle cover I got last night.

It's an actual sock!  I couldn't resist getting it.

Pretty Pink Post Plus

This week, the letter for the Alphabet Photo Challenge is "P".

It's a Positively Perfect letter with a Plethora of Possibility.

And, an opportunity for alliteration...which I love to do.

A Pink sea shell...

Pink Purls on Pink Pointy needles...

 Pink Posies on Porcelain...

Pink Patterned Pillow...

Penelope's Pink Padded Paw...

Plus, Probiotic Pills...

A Positively Pleasing Project with a Precisely Perfect Product.

Created by a very goofy blogger!

O is for Ocean

Looks like I ended up behind on the Alphabet Photo Challenge again.

But, I have a very good excuse...sort of.  I've been gone.

But, this might make up for it...the letter this week is O and...

I went somewhere that starts with "O"!   The Ocean! 

Hubby is lucky to work near the ocean.  And, one week every ten months or so, he has to work at night.  So, to avoid him having to make the hour drive home in the middle of the night, we took

our RV down to Carlsbad (northern San Diego county) and stayed by the ocean.

It was only about 10-15 minutes from his job.  That was much nicer for his drive "home".

And, we were able to escape the heat at home and enjoy perfect weather...about 75!

We made very good use of the day time hours.  One morning, we rode our bikes to Cardiff, turned around and had a delicious breakfast at the Encinitas Cafe.  Then, we made another stop at Pannikin for coffee.  It's right on highway 101, in an 1888 Santa Fe train station.  Isn't it cute?!...

The inside is fun too.  This is what you see when you walk in one of the doors...

They have a cute, old fashioned looking store that sells coffee, tea, teapots and other fun things.

Then, you turn to the left and follow the line (they're always busy) to place an order...

Their bakery case was overflowing onto the counters with yummy looking treats.

Some were even gluten free!  I had to resist because I was still full from breakfast.

More fun things to look at above the coffee making area...

What a great use of an old stove...they use it to hold cream, sugar, honey, etc...

Their coffee is delicious.  But, I think it's a little weird that they serve a hot vanilla latte

in a large glass....there's no handle and it's TOO hot to hold!  I had to use several napkins

to pick it up.  I was hoping for one of those big cups with coffee art on top.  I love those!

We went outside to sit down and enjoy our coffee.  Parked at the curb was a 

TV news van with their tower up.  They were getting all set up to cover a story...

There was a group of people that had started early in the morning for a run from Camp Pendleton to San Diego for a children's charity of some kind.  It was fun to get a behind-the-scenes look

at what it takes to get a news story.  We heard them making arrangements to meet

 the runners at the finish line later that day.  They were going to run about 46 miles that day.

This adorable little dog was waiting outside for it's owner.  It was so cute!

Our RV that was just a little cabin in the woods a few weeks ago

became our little cottage by the sea this week.  

Yes...that's the ocean right behind it!

Salsa seemed to love the cooler weather.

She took naps on her little pink hammock every day.

We could tell that she was thoroughly enjoying the shade and the cool ocean breeze.

Hey...this starts with O...sort of...it's an Old tree!

I had hoped to bike more but I'm not used to my road bike and the long ride earlier in the week

made my neck too sore to ride again.  But, the week was filled with lots of other fun stuff.

Hubby did more riding in the mornings and boogie boarding in the afternoons.

I went for walks and beach combing for more rocks to crochet lace around.

Of course, I did some knitting, a little shopping, and relaxing.

We finished our stay with a walk along the beach this morning.

The water temperature is really nice right now.  Ahhhh!

We really enjoyed watching birds...especially the different sand piper types.

There were teenie tiny ones, larger gray and white ones, and big brownish ones.

The bluff to the left is where our RV was parked.  We heard the sound of the ocean

all the time.  And, we enjoyed sunsets and and watching the moon set every night.

There are stairways like this one that lead down to the sand.

The lack of crowds during the week (and, since school has started) was wonderful!

The size and shape of the waves improved a lot today and there were lots of surfers.

You might be able to see some of them if you click on the photo to enlarge it.

Well, there's my O post.  It's not a lot of things that start with O.

It's one very large thing that starts with O...Ocean!

And, it was much more fun than some of the things I had planned on like olive oil and onions.

I didn't even take my camera out of the case....I used my cell phone for pictures.

The Letter N

The letter for this week's Alphabet Photo Challenge is N.

It's surprising which letters end up to be more challenging and which ones are easy.

I would have thought that N would have been a piece of cake but it was tough.

I couldn't think of anything for a while and was tempted to post the word "Nothing".

All kinds of words came to mind that start with N but they were all more descriptive than 

things to photograph....like Nonsense, Nice, Naughty, Never, Nifty, etc.

Then, I thought of Needles.  Here are some vintage ones...

That's all I could think of for about a week.  Then, I thought of Nuts...

Another kind of Nuts...

And, Nails...

And, how could I have not thought of this first?...My dear Nel, Nellie, Nelster, Nellerooo...

All nicknames for Penelope...the greatest kitty ever!

In this picture, she's laying on the part of the chair that is normally under the cushion.

The Naughty doggy likes to flip them up.  Nelly decided it was a Nice place to hang out.

I think O might be a little easier.  Lots of things are coming to mind for that one already.