#staycations

I got lost in the shuffle with the blog. Such is life. Still hanging close to home during the pandemic. Continuing our adventures in the great outdoors. Camping is going to be the "thing" of the summer.
We returned to Fossil Mountain. We hiked up to one of our favorite sand hills. It was a hot hike up, but the clouds came in and we even had a sprinkle of rain. Refreshing. Just a bunch of bare-footed beings released into the wild......unleashing our animal  :)

We are so spoiled with the places we can go......

What a gem of a place......

We hiked back to camp for dinner and s'mores, surrounded by old Juniper trees.

I would say darkness fell at bedtime, but we climbed into our bags under a bright moon and watched the cool cloud formations.

Later, the moon disappeared but not the glow.....

Early in the morning I managed to take my first Milky Way shot of 2020. What a beautiful sight.

These pictures were taken 12 seconds apart. I captured a UFO. Can't say it was an alien. But, what else can cover that much space in that time? It was super bright (*insert X-files theme song*), then it vanished.

Isaac and I slept without a tent. We worried a little about scorpions crawling in our sleeping bags.
The only one we saw was the Scorpio constellation in front of our heads as we gazed at the sky :)

I'm going to enjoy my summer. Even if it's different. At least I can stare at these beautiful twinkling stars and just BE.  This summer staying home is forcing us to be more present as well.

"We have a tendency to think in terms of doing,
 and not in terms of being.
We think that when we are not doing anything,
we are wasting our time.
But that is not true. Our time is first of all for us to be.
To be what? To be alive, to be peaceful, to be joyful, to be loving.
That is what the world needs most"

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

#Optoutside

Bryan and Ava went on a "herp" camping trip. They try to make a special trip annually.  Bryan had a surprise when Cliven Bundy himself waved at him while he was checking out the "Bundy Ranch" sign. Hahaha
They found some cool critters on their trip. They had to come back home to take a break from the fierce wind and extreme drop in temperatures. Then, then went back out again.

Meanwhile, our friend Meg, Isaac, Willow and I decided to exercise our stagnant lungs at high elevation. We also wanted to hike Great Basin National Park before the tourists started to pour in.
It's been a "snakey" season. Here is a Gopher snake we passed at the Osceola Ditch Trailhead above 8,000 ft. We helped it move its cold body across the road before it became another roadkill statistic.
I think I heard it say Thanksssssss. Ha!

Teresa Lake: 

Making our way up to the Bristlecone Pines, the snow patches were more frequent.

Isaac's hair matched the surroundings. It was like a GQ photo shoot at the grove....

Bristlecone Pine:

We decided to continue further up the trail, gaining more elevation. The snowy patches were so deep, the trail was lost. We had to find our own way to get to the glacier cirque...

Glacier Cirque: 

We had some fun on the way down. Meg had us use her raincoat as a sled, which worked quite well!

It's been great to get outside and inhale the low desert and high desert air.