BigBig's vacation

If you have been following me long enough to know BigBig, than you will know he is afraid of most things, even leaving the house. But he still wants to get his phobias under control and travel, and so he took the first step recently and went along with is to a cabin in Gilbert Lake state park. It is a beautiful, quiet little lake about 20 minutes from Oneonta. No motor boats allowed. We have gone to the same cabin about 5 or 6 times now. It is perfect for our son who is autistic as well as for an agoraphobic stuffed bird.

So here's a few photos from Bigbig's scrapbook. I will show you more of our photos later, along with some sketches I did while we were there.

He is afraid of heights as well as agoraphobic, so posing for this photo was a big step for BigBig. These stone buildings are all over the park. They were originally built by the NYS Civilian conservation corps.

So for being so brave , Bigbig got offered a few treats over the week we stayed there. Here is one....

hello spring finally

This week the snow is gone and we've had beautiful 80 degree weather...

what a difference a few days made...

there are tiny snow drops all over my overgrown flower beds... 

and the little purple flower are back in my yard, not violets yet, but something else, (I can't remember their name)...

actually I shouldn't have even mentioned them as I don't have a photo... 

But the purplish weed photographed is dead nettle. 

I do have tons of that up...

and I tried it in a salad this week as it is supposedly very good for you and completely edible. 

I didn't mind it but my family hated it.

 I did read on other websites that people often put it in smoothies instead of salads to get the nutrients without the texture.

 maybe I will try that,

as for art,

 I did a variety of things but only have one thing to show...

do you remember BigBig from last summer? 

(If not, then click here for one of many posts about our trip with Bigbig)

well, he was going to be in my alphabet book on the B page with this tiny sketch of him, but then I went back to an old idea I had for him and am off into a new/old direction!

I will let you know where it takes me later.

(I love twisted paths and divergent roads anyway...........)

day 6

We got up early to beat the crowds hiking to Delicate Arch in  Arches National Park, Utah.
Again, my fear of heights almost had me quitting. And the drive through the park up the side of a cliff was scary enough for BigBig that he stayed in the car the whole time instead of hiking. As i was driving up the cliffside my daughter, Jesse, started singing 'little boxes' and for some odd reason that seemed to help me from panicking too much.

"little boxes, on the hillside, little boxes, made of ticky tack. there are red ones, there are blue ones, there are yellow ones, made of ticky tack."

The hike is labeled as difficult but my daughter said she didn't realize that when she planned it. It's only 3 miles but quite steep and there is much of it that's along a ledge (no barriers) with a drop off of 460 feet,(I think it said).
It was scary but worth it at the end. I am glad we did it.
Such a stunning spot.!

I have a postcard of the arch framed at my work desk now. And BigBig's sketchbook as well....
After our hike we went back to Moab for lunch at Milts. i got a buffalo burger.
Then we drove all the way to Arizona and found the apartment where my daughter will be living. we also stopped at a very photographed loop in the river, about a mile hike to it but i couldn't get close enough to the ledge to get a good photo,but Brandy got one.

day 5

on this day i thought my worries were over, but it turns out i am afraid of driving in the mountains even when we are not on the edge of a cliff. i guess it was the speed of the traffic going down and the need for the runaway truck pull offs, i don't really know, but i was nervous wreck for miles....until we got to utah really. Brandy loved the mountains though, and did the morning driving. Even in Utah, i didn't have the feeling we were"down" until we had gotten through the spotted wolf canyon in the San Rafael swell. At least that is what I think we were driving through when I looked it up later, because even though you are on a flat road it seems to open up in the distance into a canyon, and you just feel the elevation. i am so used to living in a valley with foothills around me, i just don't feel comfortable in the higher elevations. i didn't expect that, i thought it would be the flat land of kansas that would make me uncomfortable, not the mountains and mesas. at least i wasn't afraid of the tunnels though. That's one thing at least!


i did like Moab, Utah. it was another small tourist  town, surrounded by walls of red rock. we ate at quesadilla mobila. i got the enchanted chicken, very good.

BigBig shared my guacamole. He was fine on the road here, unlike me, and he had really built up an appetitite waiting for this stop. 

We had time to shop; another rock shop, and galleries and shops full of polished cut sandstone that looked like abstract landscapes in pink rock. 

We planned to camp this night but a storm blew in and the wind picked up, swirling red dust at us. We took refuge in a shop but within 10 minutes it was flooding. To get into "Nuggy" I stepped into water up to my ankles, so we quick found a hotel downtown instead. It was nice, with an outdoor hot tub and pool with rose petals floating on the turquoise water. After an hour or so the rain stopped and the street dried back up. We went and got icecream, i had a delicious pineapple shake, before swimming.

One more day to travel....