peace lodge?

new (old) friends, doug and liz, who we just spent time in ft. collins with, went to costa rica on their honeymoon. lurking, err looking, through their blog i discovered that they stayed at this incredible place called the La Paz Peace Lodge. it looks awe-inspiring.

every trip we take brandon and i have a debate because although i enjoy roughing it and making our money go far, i also relish in staying at one or two nice places along the way. this is the nice place i want to stay at, but somehow i don't think i will be able to convince him to go for it. the standard room, which is where i would like to stay, will make him choke when i share the cost per night. maybe i will stow away a little cash here and there for this splurge. the bathroom looks magical. (note: the previous sentence is not one i ever thought i would write, but it makes taking a bath sound pretty dang exciting.)

any of you blog-readers out there who have been to costa rica, please share your advice in our comments section about places to stay. that is the most difficult thing to make decisions about. we know what kinds of things we want to do, we just want to make sure we spend our money well when it comes to bedding down.

big purchase, bigger adventure

we just bought tickets for the two of us to spend one month in the wonderful country of costa rica. we planned to go to south america, but the expense of the flights there was just too much for our pocketbook. we have both wanted to go to costa rica for a long time and so we decided to postpone south america in favor of a month in costa rica. we are thrilled!

so the purchase of our tickets may only equate to a couple of long nights of travel and some airport food, but they do bring us here:and that spot in the hammock is looking pretty dang nice. what a wonderful adventure to look forward to. with the confirmation code in hand we can now being the joyous experience of planning this unforgettable trip! (with the advent of e-tickets, you can no longer say "with tickets in hand" which has a much nicer ring than "confirmation code", but alas these are the technological ages, are they not?)

ill spent or well spent?

what are we doing with our days off this week?, you wonder. we are doing one of my favorite things: buying tires. ugh!

i hate putting money into tires and it seems we have to do it all too often. i guess it is a good sign that we are putting our car to good use and traveling around the northwest. still, it is never fun to fork over the credit card for four round rubber bits.

east bank adventures

we spent our days off this week going on a little bit of an adventure... the trip started with an enjoyable and mostly dry canoe trip down a mellow portion of the snake. brandon had never been in a canoe and i have only been out once with kemi, therefore neither of us were "experienced". about two miles down river from our place, we crossed over to the east bank, locked up our trusty vessel, and headed inland for bailey lake.

we had the lake all to ourselves and enjoyed the quiet as life in jackson means rarely finding a place to be alone, what with all the cone-likers and city-folk out looking for an outdoor experience. we swam quite a bit and layed on the sandy beach in peace. this was our oasis:i spent most of my time taking photos of the beautiful wildflowers and the amazing clouds. we were blessed with an afternoon-long thunder and lightening show so we spent a lot of our time in the tent--i started and finished an entire book! once the showers cleared, brandon took to fishing the lake and caught a few, although he didn't bring them back to show me so who knows how big those fish actually were! :)the next morning while i lay in my sleeping bag and brandon caught up on some sleep, i heard a grunting sound just outside our tent. i shook brandon until he woke up and quietly warned him of our visitor. i was freaked out, thinking that at any moment a huge moose would come trample our tent to pieces. he, on the other hand, was unfazed and ducked outside to get a better look. this is what he found:indeed, i was semi-correct to think a moose was going to pass through our camp. however, he wasn't interested in us and only wanted to get to the lake for his morning drink. brandon made me nervous, getting closer to this gangley guy so he could get a better photo. i kept thinking, "death by moose stomping is not how you want to go out brandon; please back away from this thing!" he didn't back away and, fortunately, he didn't get the certain death i feared.

the other thing i got to know quite well on this trip was stinging nettle. ouch. never before have i seen so much of this stuff. at one point i lost the trail and stumbled into a huge patch of it, my legs began to burn and welt as i tried to get out. i jumped across the small creek and grabbed onto the nearest plant to avoid sliding back into the water. what did i wrap my hand around? a huge nettle! so my legs and my left hand welted up and stung for the better part of 30 minutes.

fire crew

here is a website with details about the fire that i worked as THE security unit on last weekend (and also the fire that brandon will probably end up fighting in the near future): inciweb it has doubled in size since i left the scene, but it looks as though they are working to contain it (despite the fact that it is on wilderness land).

i'll try to post pictures tomorrow if i am able...