Tripped Out

Well, well, well. I've been north and south this summer. Most of the time I was peeing in the woods. And now, after arriving back home, I'm starting to miss it all again. Living out of backpacks, setting up tents, eating delicious fresh fruits, portaging for miles and miles, riding in the backs of trucks, wearing the same 3 shirts for 20 days, it's all just a fond memory now. So as not to bore you with my words, I'll jump into a nice little photostory of the last 6 weeks of my life. Each day this week, I'll feature some sort of photo from an aspect of my summer.
    
First, I ventured far southward to Nicaragua for about 2 weeks.  We laughed, cried, threw up, and ate the most delectable fruits on earth.
       

 

Just getting into Managua, tired but excited

      

 

        

                   

Happy Monday!

Tripping

Before I had planned to go to Nicaragua with all my camp friends, I had been hoping to go on a program that we call, Extended Trip. It's usually about 5 to 10 girls, with leader, Steve. They venture up to Canada, about a six-hour drive from our location in New Hampshire, to dive into the woods and have some nature-ridden fun.

However, I'm not in the age range to go on the trip anymore, I missed it by a year. So this fall, when I was applying to skip off to Nicaragua, I informed the director of my wish to both go to Nicaragua and go on extended trip. Well, that easily turned into a mess. I could only go if there were an odd number of girls, since canoes had to be evenly filled. I wasn't too disappointed, Nicaragua was going to be amazing as well. And I let any thoughts of white water canoeing and long van rides leave my mind.

Well, I was shocked and thrilled to learn this morning that one girl wasn't able to go on the trip anymore. I feel badly that she can't come, but when I got that random call offering me a place on the trip, I jumped at the offer. A normally two thousand dollar trip for free. Three weeks of adventuring in Canada. White water canoeing. No electricity. I'm going off the grid for a bit the summer, and I look forward to every second of it.

Adventure

I've been reading Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer for the past 4 hours or so and I like what page 115 has to offer. Food for thought:

"Chris just didn't like being told what to do. I think he would have been unhappy with any parents; he had trouble with the whole idea of parents."

A lot of the time, parents don't have much respect for their kids; they don't consider us adults and they don't see that we have ideas of our own and we have our own way that we like to do things. Chris McCandless didn't like being told what to do. He wanted to find his own path and not have his parents so involved in making his decisions in life. I dislike that parents have so much control over their children's lives as they do. What if kids weren't so limited in their adventures? Would children grow up to be less rigid, depressed, pessimistic adults?
That reminds me... "Do one thing a day that scares you." Eleanor Roosevelt
Be adventurous today. It doesn't have to be anything big like base jumping or anything, but make something to eat without a recipe or reconstruct an old t-shirt without a pattern. Crawl out of the shell that you are comfortable in and experiment a little.

Photo credit: Danny Roberts (on Etsy)

Crazy Pink

So, last night I dyed my hair pink, not the whole thing, just the underneath part. I've been periodically coloring my hair like this for a while now, so it wasn't very exciting. However this time, I put my hair in my mom's hands. Since it was a part in the back of my head, I couldn't reach around enough to put the dye on myself, so I called in reinforcements. Well, let my just say that she both had poor listening skills and zero idea what she was doing. I told her many times, 'you have to make the dye start frothing', to which I was given a, 'I don't think this is working, it's not foaming'. Probably because every time I reminded her to make the dye foam, she just put the brush in the little container and added more dye to my hair. Usually when I dye, I'll wash my hair first, let the dye sit for a while and then pop in the shower after to get the dye out, and clean up, naturally. Well, I remove the tinfoil, and pink starts dripping all over. I honestly considered skipping school because of the fact that I would be covered in pink for the rest of my life. So, most of the dye managed to rinse out, but the backs of my ears, the back of my neck, my hands, and the soles of my feets are all still varying shades of fuschia or magenta. The color however, came out nicely.

The Wonderland is Melting

It was really nice out today. Really nice out. So I decided I would venture into my backyard and capture the splendor with some photog. I went places I had never been before, all in the name of art. And now I will share the adventure with you.

I'm in love with trees silhouetted against the sky. I took about a million photographs just like this one as the sun continued to set and I love them. Definitely getting their own slideshow.
Ah, my discovery! There's a berry-producing plant in my backyard. I really had no idea.
But it was a berry pleasant surprise, for sure.
But, as it turns out, I was not the first in these territories. As evidenced by the beer cans. Yes, that is multiple cans. 

All in all, marvelous day. I hope you enjoyed the good weather (if you had some). And now, let the rain commence. 

The Adventures of Shark Boy (is our car brooken) and (I) Lava (you) Girl

[Toasties I made this weekend]

Well. Today was quite an adventure. If it wasn't slipping on the bottom of the driveway while taking the dog for a walk, it was starving in the middle of the woods, or having our car break down. In a nutshell, today was a mess. But looking back, none of it really seems that bad. The day started off as any other, and the slipping wasn't really a big thing either. However, after spending approximately 20 minutes at the trail-head of the ski place, waiting for the keeper of the keys (Momma) I should have known that things were gonna start going downhill. and soon. After what seemed like years of waiting for the keys, and my route to nourishment not showing up I figured she might be doing the same thing I was. Waiting. So, despite my stomach screaming at me not to do anymore skiing, I made a quick loop, on the lookout for my latent mother, and upon not finding her, was completely dismayed. I thought that if she was in the woods, she would be looking for me, making it incredibly stupid to go up to the parking lot, but eventually my stomach won the argument against me head, and I started the trek upward. Of course, there she was, my mother, waiting in the car. The. Whole. Time. It was ridiculously frustrating. However, I got in the car, grabbed the granola and yogurt I had packed and chowed down. From here, things only got worse. We're driving along, when all of a sudden, there's a noise and persistent thudding coming from the engine-area. A belt had slipped. We turned off all the electricity in the car, but it was getting dark, and making it home without any lights seemed like quite a challenge. But, we are strong women, and momma pulled through, getting us back to the car shop just after dark. Now all we need is a new belt and a good nights sleep. I hope your days were slightly less fraught with crazyness!