dancing in the dark

i asked duff for months to figure out where she put the piece of paper where she scribbled my password to my blog, and it only took her a year and a half to find it. in the meantime, i've traveled to europe two or three times, the bahamas, hawaii, alaska, washington, oregon....and not to forget my first whitewater rafting trip! duff says it'll be a while before we can put up pictures from all of my trips, but she'll see what she can do.

anyway, hi. if you're new to my blog, my name is bodhi, and i'm one of duff's gnomads. there should be a link to my (also outdated) page on the gnomads website somewhere to the right. if you scroll down a little, you'll also see links to pictures of me with famous people. i have another one to add to the list: little steven of bruce springsteen's e street band.


that's duff on the left, me and little steven (who's a heck of a lot bigger than i am!) in the middle, and duff's boyfriend on the right. the picture is blurry for obvious reasons- obviously, the photographer was excited to have the privilege of taking my photograph.

<:)

(during the last year, i had time to play on duff's computer while she looked for my password, and i figured out how to make those smiley face things, so i made my own gnome smiley face. do you like the hat?)

anyway, here are some other pictures from backstage:


here i am, waiting in line to meet little steven. duff was afraid i might get crushed, so i'm waiting with her boyfriend while she checks out the buffet.


the buffet. there's a plate full of cheese in the middle of the table. i was nibbling on my second piece of gouda when little steven walked by, dashing my hopes of getting a picture of just me and him. the cheese was worth it, though.

duff said we had to go upstairs and find our seats before the band started playing. i wanted to take more cheese with me, but duff said i had to leave some for other people.

here are some pictures duff took with her phone:




one of the little blurs is bruce springsteen, so i guess you could say i got my picture taken with him, too.

duff got a shirt before we left. they didn't have any that were my size, but maybe can ask my new friend, little steven, to see what he can do about that.

wandering in the woods (by hot dog)

hi. my name is hot dog. my brothers bodhi and f stop have taken off on yet another cruise, and while they're gone, i'm in charge of maintaining bodhi's blog.

it looks like it has been awhile since bodhi last bothered to post, and judging from the pile of notes and photos he left all over duff's desk, i'm thinking someone around here needs to get caught up. (since i've got a week or two before my next hike, perhaps i'll find time to go back and blog about some of our fairly recent adventures- be sure to check back again soon, ok?)

at any rate, duff realized that it had been awhile since i last had the opportunity to get out and stretch my legs, so she invited me along on yesterday's hike to raven cliff falls, near the north/south carolina border. the caesar's head state park visitor's center is located about a mile from the raven cliff trailhead, and the photo above is yours truly with caesar himself.

we took the shorter, 4.4 mile (round trip) hike to the scenic overlook, which is across the valley from the 420 foot waterfall. duff says that maybe next time we can go on the slightly longer hike to the bridge that crosses the waterfall and back, but this was a great introduction to the area.


here i am at the scenic overlook. by this point in the hike, i was dying for some beef jerky.

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