Moving In & Getting Organized

So we've been unpacking, and unwrapping all the things that we all too recently wrapped and packed up to move. I've decided to not buy anything new for our apartment here in Bloomington, with the small but awesome exception of the Charley Harper prints I now having hanging in our living room/dining room. Charley Harper is my favorite artist, many of this pieces have to do with animals and wildlife, and these in particular where commissioned by the National Park Service, another favorite of mine. I love them, love them love them--and got them for a great deal at the U.S. Government Bookstore. (I found them from a tip on Retro Renovation and hopped on the internet to order straight away.) This is how they look, let me know what you think...

Yes, that is Matlock on TV 

And as always, I like to show a few pictures of the process. Lots of figuring out placement, measuring, and sinking anchors and screws. 

We also hung my hubby's Great Aunt's painting above the fireplace. I think it looks great!

Lots of Christmas decor on the shelves and mantles, maybe I'll even go back and take a few pics after Christmas has cleared out and everything is set up "permanently". And speaking of Christmas, one, the JOY decoration on the fireplace was made by my bestie, Kelly, owner of Petals by the Shore, I just love it! And two, here's an obligatory picture of our Christmas tree.

I really hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!

A few more shots from the Dunes

More about our camping trip here.

Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore

This past weekend, hubby, pup and I packed up and headed to the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore for a weekend of sun, sand and camping.

When we first got there we set up the campsite. If you are thinking about camping here, get there early; campsites are first come/first serve. We stayed in the Mather Loop at campsite M34. It was nice, but not overly roomy--if we'd had more people joining us it would have been tight--but we didn't so it was perfect. If you do have your choice of sites, I thought some of the sites along the back of the loop looked really nice, and many of the sites were much bigger. Here is our site, to give you an idea of where we stayed.

After setting up camp, we went to check out Mount Baldy on the far east side of the park. There are two ways to get to the beach from the parking lot; a short hike up and over a dune, or a little longer hike over some smaller dunes. 

Now, the trail head clearly says to only take the trail over the large dune if you are good shape--we took that trail, and are not in the best shape--don't be scared. A rest or two on the way up and anyone in decent condition will be fine. Here are a few pictures from the top of Mt. Baldy...

Looking straight out at Lake Michigan

And looking east at the beautiful power plant in Michigan City

Now to go back up the same dune to the parking lot is much more steep, but it is ultra fun to go down!

Steep!

After climbing (and descending) Mt. Baldy, we walked along the beach heading west, and waded in the cold water of Michigan. 

Pup's first time in waves!

Looking down the beach

After walking for a while we took the trail through the woods back to the parking lot--it was really pretty!!

After that we hit up an incredibly crazy junk store (on the corner of second and central, if you are interested...it's a pickers paradise), brought some firewood, and spent the rest of the night playing Bananagrams, cooking and hanging out by our campfire.

Day Two started with a nice drive along Lakeshore Drive and eventually ending up at Central Beach. We swam around in the lake with puppy and then took a catnap in the sand; the weather was perfect and we were able to find a secluded spot and it kinda felt like a private beach.

Central Beach

My sandy Puppy Girl!

After hanging out at the beach for a while we started to feel a little thirsty and a little burny, so we decided to head back to the campsite for lunch. After hanging out there for a bit we went to Portage Lakefront and Riverwalk. While there are no dogs allowed on the actually beach, we enjoyed walking on the trail to the beach (paved so it's good for strollers and wheelchairs too) and out onto pier.

Trail to the beach

Portage Lakefront and Riverwalk Pavilion

Beachfront

"Riverwalk" Pier

After our walk back to the car I realized how tired, and hungry I was. We headed back to our campsite once again to start a fire and cook some dinner. After dinner, we played more Bananagrams and hung out around the campfire.

Sunday morning we woke up, broke camp, and headed home. It was an awesome trip! And I would recommend the Indiana Dunes to anyone--especially those in the Chicagoland region--as a quick, fun, inexpensive way to enjoy Lake Michigan's beaches.

#28 Put Away Camping Gear, #100 Add Handles to Camping Gear Storage and #3 Make Summer Camping Reservations

Only a few more weeks of the Lenten season, and we're still marking projects off the list!

#28 was to Put Away Camping Gear. We actually organized this area of our basement really well in the fall too. When we renovated our kitchen in the Spring of 2009, we moved some of the old cabinets into the basement. These cabinets now hold laundry supplies, tools and camping gear. In addition we are using some of the furniture I've had since I was 4 years old to hold camping gear. Both the re-purposed cabinets and kid shelves and drawers are perfect for this kind of storage. And even though we haven't used any of the camping gear since last fall, we were generously given a lot of great camping gear for Christmas. While the new gear had previously been corralled to the basement, it now has a permanent home with the other camping gear.

At the same time we completed #100 Add Handles to Camping Gear Storage. When we got my old childhood furniture from my mom, the first thing my Hubby did was paint it. And while it looks much better, some of the drawers now stick from being painted and living in the humid basement. Easy fix, we added inexpensive 4" drawer handles today, and now the drawers work just fine!!

After the organizing of the camping gear, it seemed fitting to do #3 Make Summer Camping Reservations. We are now planning a trip to the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore (which we learned actually does not take reservations) and to Mirror Lake Wisconsin State Park. We decided that while we hopefully will do more camping than this it is difficult to make reservations too far into the future, since stuff always seems to pop up. But I am not uber excited for these two trips!!!

The Beautiful, Wonderful, Amazing Grand Canyon

Of all the places we visited on our Arizona trip, the Grand Canyon was my favorite. I guess that's not a huge surprise, I've heard people talk about the Grand Canyon in awe many times, seen pictures, saw it on TV, but none of it was like seeing it in person. The Grand Canyon is absolutely breathtaking. 

We went on a Sunday in March, and the park was relatively empty, a perk because I've heard one of the worst things about the Grand Canyon is the crowds. It is $25 per car to get into the park, but we didn't spent a lick of money once we were there. (Not that I'm opposed, support your National Parks!) Since we had a limited time and could not linger at the park, we decided to take the shuttle bus to Hermit's Rest. Shuttle buses run all over the park and are free. Before embarking on our shuttle bus journey we stopped at the main visitor's center for the South Rim to get a stamp for our National Parks Passport and shuttle bus map, and then went out to Mather Point to see the canyon for the first time. 

The above pictures are taken from Mather Point and do not come close to really looking at the Grand Canyon. Mather Point was the most crowded place we stopped along the Grand Canyon, but a must see at any rate. 

On to the shuttles. From the visitor's center we hopped the blue shuttle to the red shuttle transfer. The blue shuttle services cafeteria's, guest lodges, and gift stores; all great places to stop if you have time, but for us, this was boring and took us away from mission of seeing the canyon. I would recommend parking as close as possible to the red line to skip as much as possible of the blue line (unless of course you would like to use any of the handy services mentioned). The blue line-red line transfer is the trail head for Bright Angel Trail, the trail for donkey rides and many hikers and yet another amazing view. 

Above is a picture of the view and trail by the blue line-red line transfer. After getting on the red line, you have a choice of stopping at every stop, some stops or just riding as a sightseeing tour. We choose to stop at Powell Point, Mohave Point, Pima Point and Hermit's Rest. Below are a picture and little blurb on each...

Powell Point

Powell Point has a memorial to John Westley Powell, which is cool in and of itself but can be climbed to get an even better view of the canyon. To get out to the memorial you walk on a thin land bridge without guardrails so if you don't like heights this maybe a scary place for an outlook. If you have time, I would suggest getting off the shuttle at the previous stop and walking to Powell Point and/or walking to the next stop Hopi Point, all of these stops are close together and the trail runs right next to the canyon. 

Mohave Point

Mohave Point was probably my favorite stop of the day. From here you can see the Colorado River, the outlooks are expansive (both railed and not), and the point is large giving you lots of view points of the canyon. This outlook is not to be missed on the "West Rim". 

Pima Point

Another beautiful lookout area, though we weren't there for either, I would guess this point is prime for sunrise and sunset, as Pima Point jets out into the canyon giving amazing views in all directions. 


Hermit's Rest

Along with it's amazing views, Hermit's Rest has restrooms, snacks and a gift shop. The Rest was designed by Mary Colter in 1914. It is the westernmost stop on the South Rim, and the trail head down to Hermit Camp in the canyon. After stopping here, we boarded the bus back to the red-blue transfer, this trip was significantly faster on the way back. That is until we got to the blue line, at this point in the day the stops in this area were tedious, with the only highlight being that we saw a coyote from the bus. All in all we were at the park for about 4 to 4 1/2 hours, which is not enough time to scratch the surface of amazing things to do and see here. We are already planning our next trip which will surely include seeing sunrise and sunset, the Watch Tower (also built by Mary Colter) and some hiking below the canyon rim...who knows maybe even a donkey ride the canyon floor. 

Tuzigoot...I just love that name!

Our last stop on Saturday was to Tuzigoot. The area was once again absolutely beautiful, and the history of this park was very cool. To get to Tuzigoot, we traveled through Cottonwood, an absolutely cutie town, and from the ruin we could see Jerome, a mountain town we stopped in last year. Here are some of the pictures of  I took while we were there...

Montezuma's Well

Montezuma's Well was beautiful! Located about 5 miles north of Montezuma's Castle, another small site, but will a beautiful views and short hikes. If you go there, I highly recommend taking the trail down into the "well". We weren't going to, but I'm so glad we did. Here's my photos of our hike...