hiking in zion national park

duff's been hogging the computer lately, but she's finally agreed to help me post pictures from our recent trip to zion national park in southern utah.

since we drove up to the park from phoenix, arizona, we wound up crossing the grand canyon via the historic navajo bridge.

my brothers, f-stop and hotdog, were able to join us on the trip. f-stop wanted to take a bunch of pictures, since he'd heard that the views at zion were amazing (they were), and hotdog really likes hiking and camping, and this excursion promised plenty of opportunities for both.

here we are at the park' southern entrance, in springdale, utah.


i opted out of the first hike, in zion narrows, because i don't like getting wet and duff said that we'd be hiking in the water for almost the whole time. however, f-stop and hotdog kept her company during the hike, and i sort of promised them that i'd put up a few pictures on their behalf:

hotdog (on the left) and f-stop (on the right) at the sinawava shuttle stop, near the zion narrows trailhead.

when hiking, if the trail crosses a stream, river, or other body of water, sometimes it will be marked with small piles of stones, called cairns. with that in mind, hotdog and f-stop were highly amused to see these piles of smooth stones in a little cave along the virgin river, which serves as the trail through the zion narrows.

(left to right:paddy (duff's dad's gnome), packer (he belongs to her good friend carol hudson), hot dog, and f-stop.)


as they hiked, they came across this camera sitting on a rock by the river. duff offered to take the gnomes' picture, but quickly discovered the camera had been left behind for a reason- it had fallen into the river and was soaking wet. so, instead of taking a picture of the gnomes with the camera, she took a picture of the gnomes with the camera.

(to be continued)

miss me much?

i'm back from my trip to wyoming, montana, and my brief drive through idaho. i have not yet had time to sort through my pictures, but here's a little souvenir from my white water adventure.*



*a slight embellishment, as i was actually padling around an inlet of a lake in a kayak.

hot dog's guest post

hi. my name is hot dog. i'm bodhi's other brother, and until recently, i've been living in gilbert, arizona, and travelling with friends of duff's. (in fact, i'm named after a mouse they camped with at the bottom of the grand canyon in november 2004.)

after duff and bodhi came out to visit me last month, i decided it might be a good idea to travel back with them to see what the east coast is like. since coming out here, i've spent most of my time resting at home, but yesterday duff took me for my first eastern hike, at congaree national park near hopkins, south carolina.

the weather in south carolina is a lot more humid than in arizona, and there were thunderous rumblings during our entire 4.4 mile hike. fortunately, the rain didn't start falling until were were heading back to columbia.

here are a few pictures from our trip:


the entrance to the park


this was taken soon after we set off on the "lower boardwalk" trail.


the trees behind me are bald cypress trees, and the stumpy looking things behind me are called "knees". they're part of the trees' root systems, and i think they probably keep the trees (which grow to be extremely tall) from falling over.


here i am on one of the bridges along the trail. as you can see in this picture (as well as the one below), the creek was really low. hopefully the rain that came later in the afternoon helped remedy that situation.



i'm looking forward to my next hike. i know bodhi will join us for our trip to yellowstone and the grand tetons next month....perhaps i can talk him into joining us on a few hikes (assuming we have the opportunity) between now and then.

bonding with my brother in arizona

after two major trips back to back, i think it's time for this gnomad to kick up his heels and relax for a while. fortunately, i have two months before my next hike- perhaps my blisters (my sandals just aren't the best footwear for long hikes) will have settled by then.

on our trip, i asked duff if she'd mind taking a few pictures of me. i hadn't realized how many there were until i started looking through her album. here are some of my favorites:

we stopped at tuzigoot national monument on the way to seligman, arizona, where we spent the night on april 20th.



after our quick stop at tuzigoot, we drove across the verde valley to jerome, arizona- duff's favorite "ghost" town.


duff even let my friends and i take a quick ride in an old mining car.....well, we pretended to, anyway.


after spending a little time in jerome, we drove through prescott to seligman, where we spent the night.

the next morning, my friends and i slept in while duff and her friends ate breakfast at a small diner across from our motel. when they finished, they came and picked us up, and we headed up to the hualapai hilltop to begin our hike to the havasupai campground.

my brother f-stop is in barcelona right now, but my other brother, hotdog, let me stash some of my gear in his backpack. here we are at the trailhead:

and further along the trail.....

stopping for a moment with friends
(left to right: packer, the twins from ohio, paddy, bodhi, hotdog, and sarah)




here are hotdog and i in front of the first waterfall- navajo falls.


here we are at the second waterfall, havasu falls. the water here falls 100 feet.


here we are at the base of mooney falls- a 200 foot drop.

a little further down the trail, with mooney falls in the background


and here we are at beaver falls, right before we turned around and headed back to camp.


the next day, sunday april 23rd, we got a late start heading out of camp, and when we reached the village, it was decided that we'd treat ourselves to a helicopter ride back to the hilltop. fortunately for us, gnomes flew free with each paying passenger. after we landed, we loaded up the truck and drove over to the touristy portion of grand canyon national park.

after a much needed shower and an early bedtime (hotdog and i crashed while the duff and her friend karen went off in search of dinner), we awoke the next morning and headed to the rim of the canyon. neither hotdog nor i had ever been in this part of the canyon before, so naturally, we asked duff if she'd mind taking a couple "touristy" pictures for us.



...and here we are near the eastern entrance to the park, at the desert view watchtower.


after leaving the canyon, we made brief stops at wupatki ruins and sunset crater volcano, and then drove the rest of the way back to phoenix.




whew! that's a lot of photos. in fact, it's almost as many photos as i have blisters to treat before the next hike. you wouldn't happen to have some hiking boots i could borrow, would you?

solvang souvenir

(on reverse)

mistress duff,
well, here we are in sunny? california. why do they call it sunny when it's raining all the time? so far, since i last wrote, my friend paddy and i have been in crescent city, ca, driven thru redwoods national park down to ukiah, ca. we saw a play there, "fiddler on the roof". i guess that fiddler being on the roof is why they were singing all the time. we saw seagulls in mendocino, drank beer and wine in booneville and ate too much pea soup in buellton. now we are in solvang eating danish.

your friend,
bodhi

a postcard from bodhi

april 5, 2006
mistress duff,
i have never been so cold, nor seen so much snow in my life. we drove up here today, arriving about noon. paddy and i got our picture taken in a snow bank more than twice the height of a man! the parking lot at the visitor center is surrounded by 15 feet high snow walls. the visitor center is buried under snow and no light comes in thru the windows. this is a harsh place for a sun, flower and tree loving gnome.
~bodhi

bo(dhi) and bo

i'm not quite sure who this bo bice guy is, but judging from the crowd at the flying saucer this evening, i guess he's pretty popular.

back on dry land

hola!

i have just returned home from my second cruise in a month and a half. (it helps that gnomes generally travel free, let me tell you!) while duff stayed with her friends devon and alex, i accompanied their parents on their annual getaway- and this time, it just happened to be a caribbean cruise.

here's our boat, the wind surf:


we were on the boat for nearly a week, but i'm afraid the abundance of frosty beverages on the boat has left me a little confused as to the order in which we visited various islands. with that in mind here are a few selected photos from my trip:









as you can see, the weather was gorgeous, for the most part, and i had a fantastic time....and didn't have to be rescued from peril even once! (being limited to just two frosty beverages a day probably helped.)

after a slight delay....

i mailed a postcard to duff during my recent cruise (on february 2nd, to be exact), and it finally arrived today.





mistress duff,

on the other side of this card is an example of what we did not see in cozumel. instead we just walked around the port city, looked in some stores, and saw all the damage the hurricane had done. as you will see when you get the pictures, master dad tried to feed us to a shark, but we got away.

after cozumel we went to roatan, honduras where we got to play with monkeys, parrots, macaws. they were all very interesting and fearless of humans.

yesterday, the 1st, we visited belize and drove many miles over very rough dirt roads to see some jungle and a very small cave. i'll be home soon!

bodhi

which reminds me- i still have to share pictures from my trip with you:

before our actual cruise, we spent a couple days in houston, texas. on friday, january 27th, we explored the forbidden gardens in katy, texas. the attraction is a recreation of the forbidden city in china, and i'm pleased to report that gnomes get in free.

my friends packer, paddy, and i maintained a safe distance from the terracotta soldiers.

packer and paddy were nearly devoured by this marble creature inside the courtyard, but i jumped on his nose until he spit them back out. as you can see, it was a rather daring rescue.

with a pillar elsewhere in the courtyard

we boarded the ship and headed to cozumel, mexico over the weekend.

here's that shark in cozumel i wrote about:

we also stopped by the hard rock cafe for a picture

the next day, we stopped at roatan, a small honduran island.

unfortunately, not every scene on roatan was this peaceful. we ran into a rather fierce-looking pirate in a cave on the island.

as you can see, i was briefly held prisoner by the pirate, but packer, paddy, and i soon gained the upper hand(gun):

after a quick getaway, we reboarded our cruise ship and set sail for belize, arriving on belizean (is that a word?) shores the next day.

we explored the rainforest and played with monkeys and macaws in the jungle, and then feasted on cold fajita rollups in this hut.

finally, i tried to get a photo with our ship's captain, but captain mogic was too busy making sure we didn't unintentionally run aground, so i had to settle for this picture with his picture instead.