From my spot here in the great room I can see "what I haven't done" towards finishing the exterior paint job on our house. I could finish it in a day, and I might, do that today. What's left is part of the little house and touch up along one side. I wanted to get this done so I could focus my full attention on the quilts (that I made for Christmas gifts). The summer heat finally shut me down.

I started that job after we came home from our summer camping trip.

We needed  warm sleeping bags on the night we spent on the Northern Rim of the Grand Canyon. Boy were we miserable that night! All three of us were cold, but making matters worse, my daughter C had altitude sickness. As soon as there was light we headed to the lodge there for a big breakfast. My fruit salad featured blackberries the size of shooter marbles and fresh cantaloupe - so good.

I guess I feel bad about not at very least creating a post to save some of the camping trip memories ...

The trip wasn't very well planned.  We knew roughly where we wanted to go - with Zion being the furthest point, and Denver would be our last stop before heading home.

White Sands was an add on ... very cool. I don't need to see it again, but it is definitely a must see. I asked one of my flying buds to send a pic from "up high" and it's a cool looking white spot on New Mexico.  The lava fields at Carrizozo, Valley of Fires, was another very cool add on to the over all loose plan. Fair to say New Mexico was a delightful surprise because of the rich natural beauty. Carlsbad, NM was definitely our worst over night camping experience though. It was just a mess of a town in my opinion.

This was a remote area for a sissy girl camp site ... probably was our 3rd night out and I was still "skittish". Turned out I was the most cautious of our little group of three.

The petroglyphs we saw the next day around Three Rivers, New Mexico really made the campsite selection worth it for me ... on the drive in to the camping area we passed through private ranch land and saw magnificent horses roaming free. That was pretty cool.

I seem to have a thing of LOVING searching for and finding little less than obvious treasures ... it was exercised frequently during this trek through the Southwest.

The ruins at Chaco are amazing.
Definitely on my second look list.

Those two pictures (above) were taken at Chaco.

Pretty fabulous. Remote though ... we drove for an hour or more one way in on a rutted dirt road. There's a better way in but that wasn't our route.

Carlsbad - in a picture

The two above were taken at Mesa Verde - also a favorite National Park

It's amazing to see how the ancient people lived.

four corners - basically  photo op stop and a bunch of merchant stalls

The Painted Desert and Petrified Forest was an add on for this trip.

I had been there several times during my childhood but my traveling buddies hadn't seen it before.

Breakfast at the Lodge on the North Rim. 

Grand Canyon

Zion - hard to say it was my favorite stop, but it is one I need to go back to and stay awhile.

typical campsite

bare essentials kept close at hand
the showers provided at most of our campsites were
adequate ... and for pay.
I came to look forward to the next one!

This is the MOAB area

we were without cell coverage a good bit of the time

which has led us to research better options for the next trip
especially if we "get" a Sprinter Van which is looking like a go.

typical breakfast

typical dinner
but I'm practicing on our home fire ring pit
for next time because there's something very appealing about cooking over an open flame!

One of our sons joined us for a few nights in the Denver area.

Before that we tucked in at Blackhawk for the comforts of  pristine clean sheets and all the running water we could use!