lake time

a woot hoo goes out to the favorite for getting an almost free boat for us enjoy the lake on last saturday. in the morning the adam & mandy enjoyed a few hours

unfortunately for adam we didn't get the right size of wakeboard to see his skills, sorry!

mandy did show her never aged skiing techniquesboth dudley girls like it fast and as close to perfect as possible (see hand signals)the water was pretty calm until the memo got out and more boats thought the same thing
forgetting the after the 4:30 am arrival the night before the pachecos arrived on the scene
this was a happy picture before both phones, book, and stuff got wet and ruined. sniff sniff...

then there was a switch and the douglass couple left to retrieve their cute baby boy and mama came to bask in then sun as well.
then it was jaimie's turn to show her stuff

impressive,

then jose showed his mad abilities on the kneeboard & wakeboardthen analee showed her sick moves as well...

then we all took a relaxing dip in labyrinth canyon and then called it a day.

no that isn't a ninja turtle

lil friends

yesterday my good friends nicole & kasey & their cute boys, wes & mckay, took a stop through town on their way down to tempe. it's always fun to see them and be amazed of how big their boys are getting. after bribing didn't work, i coaxed wes to go on the big green slide in the indoor playland by climbing up the slide first. who knew i could still fit, i think the playland engineers must know that kids will chicken out or freeze so they make things big enough for about anyone to enter. mckay was hilarious with his pterodactyl screams.

today i was surprised to see both of my parents' desert tortoises. i haven't seen the lil girl in years & she's grown. they're definitely the most spoiled in the house with their snap peas and green beans. yesterday the boy hissed at me b/c i tried giving him celery and he didn't like the variety...

and i thought i was the food snob.

i wish...

i wish for all sorts of things. today it's for all this studying to stick in my head. i take my big test on the 30th and can't wait till it's all over.

during one of my many breaks today i listened to my itunes and it shuffled to this song.


Tree Hugger by Kimya Dawson & Antsy Pants fm Juno
(p.s. if anyone has not seen Juno...SEE IT!)


The flower said, "I wish I was a tree,
"The tree said, "I wish I could be
A different kind of tree,
The cat wished that it was a bee,
The turtle wished that it could fly
Really high into the sky,
Over rooftops and then dive
Deep into the sea.


And in the sea there is a fish,
A fish that has a secret wish,
A wish to be a big cactus
With a pink flower on it.
And in the sea there is a fish,
A fish that has a secret wish,
A wish to be a big cactus
With a pink flower on it.


And the flower
Would be its offering
Of love to the desert.
And the desert,
So dry and lonely,
That the creatures all
Appreciate the effort.


And the rattlesnake said,
"I wish I had hands so
I could hug you like a man."
And then the cactus said,
"Don't you understand,
My skin is covered with sharp spikes
That'll stab you like a thousand knives.
A hug would be nice,
But hug my flower with your eyes.


"The flower said, "I wish I was a tree,
"The tree said, "I wish I could be
A different kind of tree,
The cat wished that it was a bee,
The turtle wished that it could fly
Really high into the sky,
Over rooftops and then dive
Deep into the sea.


And in the sea there is a fish,
A fish that has a secret wish,
A wish to be a big cactus
With a pink flower on it.
And in the sea there is a fish,
A fish that has a secret wish,
A wish to be a big cactus
With a pink flower on it.


And the flower
Would be its offering
Of love to the desert.
And the desert,
So dry and lonely,
That the creatures all
Appreciate the effort.


so i guess we should JUST BE.

as i ran in the desert behind my house again today & i'm reminded of the beauty & stillness of the desert. other than the area they've allowed developers to come in and destroy part of "my" desert. i've decided to spit on their stuff in spite of their greed just like i did to businessman dave who bulldozed his grandmother's beloved yellow house in p-town to build cookie cutter, blah condos.


as for the desert i've never felt that solitary or lonely. i see at least one jackrabbit daily and there's a softness of the desert sun in the morning. sounds weird i know but it's gentle to your face and gives the perfect amount of warmth and doesn't strain your eyes. i reminisce of my cross country races in the area and my old coach, mr. trapp, yelling at me. strangely his voice comes in my head almost every time i run and it motivates me to run a little bit better. after i got caught in a race running with my friend, joy, chatting it up and we weren't allowed to run again with each other even during practice. i think i took running a little more serious after that. today i'm grateful for the push to run from my father as i entered high school when i didn't even know what cross country meant. the healthy hobby has helped my life ever since.


enough blabbing... back to studying

snake oil

as i was taking the non-direct bus through guatemala (the one that was supposed to be in at 7:30 but then as we were pulling into flores, the direct bus passed us and beat us in around 10:30 p.m. yeah that one) there are always lil vendors either at a bus stop that walk through your bus vending then get off or they yell at you by the windows or you may even pick someone up on the way and then tell you about their product and sell their goods and then get off a few minutes later. well on the bus up towards flores before it got ridiculously packed at around rio dulce we had a snake oil sales man come on. he had a very old pop up human body book that he explained how his special tea cured many things helped the brain, heart and boundless other things. he basically said all the things these pyramid schemes can't publicly say in the us but you hear stories about the special acai fruit from brazil can cure. luckily he left me alone he must of felt the "i don't believe in your snake oil cure" expression on my face. i almost felt i was in utah again amongst taitian noni, xango, and whatever other ones are out there.

so as to my surprise, i arrived to my parents home i found a snake oil product. of course they paid a ridiculous amount for AND my father was taking his 2nd dose for the day in a shot glass. little did i know they're into shot glasses and should have bought him a central american shot glass instead of a t-shirt. my mom even got my grandpa a case and was embarrassed when my grandpa told another older gent at church how his daughter got him some snake oil. see even my gpa knows the truth. so i'm interested to see if this helps the arthritis and whatever else it's supposed to cure. i'll be keeping a special watch on them while i'm here for a week to make sure they don't replace all that they own with products only purchased through quixtar, melaleuca, or nu skin. wish me luck!

(no offense to those working in the said agencies above... unless you've sold your souls to them.)

back home

when i flew back from central america i flew first to phoenix, which i enjoyed an intense blood red sunset which the valley is known for (mainly b/c of their pollution) but this picture isn't even close to justice of the beauty.

az is full of spectacular sights and high on the list is home. so jaimie had the day off and we set off for antelope canyon on the kayaks.

the day was perfect no wind, not choppy in the channel, late 70's for the temp, you really can't get better. i wished i was on a slolem ski but it was still super enjoyable for a monday.

we made our way past where the ski doos have to turn around and got to hike a bit as well. my mom's words "we are so lucky to live here" (with a slight tear in her eye) always pop into my head when i go to beautiful places near home.

lower lower antelope slot canyon... local discount=we find it...free of charge

at first she was reenacting the lion king, then the little mermaid, then it turned into some random modern dance moves? she's dating an austrian, i don't know what's happening to her :)maybe this is an austrian techno dance move that she learned... who knows

example: we needed another paddle for a kayak (since i lost one years ago on the moab daily when i got caught in an eddy and ended up letting go of both paddle and flipped kayak in attempt to swim out of the eddy and let karen know i wasn't dead after swirling around for 10 minutes...back to the example...)
we went to go rent a paddle from the only place in town that rents kayaks and no one was around the shop was open etc. so i was about to leave the owners came back and after looking at poor civi with 2 kayaks on the top the owner told me he wasn't going to put another kayak on my car but his wife lent me the paddle free of charge. now that's good people!

anyways the day was great and even though our hike was shortened by a gatekeeper, we were blissfully happy in the smooth waters of the lake.

the rewards of being cheap

after being in chetumal for many hours waiting for my bus, i missed my bus unbeknownst to me. i decided to walk around a little more around the bus terminal and to my dismay i saw two clocks on the wall... then i found that i had changed time zones when i crossed over from belize to mexico. i feel a notice of this change would have been nice but i ran to a lady seeing that it was 15 minutes after my ticket was supposed to leave. she radioed the bus but it was already too late. so i had to purchase a ticket for a later bus for a higher price and i rolled into playa del carmen about 1:30 a.m. the best thing is i could have left a couple of hours earlier on a first class bus in chetumal but being the thrifty traveler i was i wasn't going to pay that extra 80 pesos (like $8 bucks) but because i missed my bus i still had to pay about the same amount to get another ticket to playa. luckily on a saturday night it was still bumpin' in playa so the walk to my hostel wasn't scary.

i should stopped my cheap skate ways after not taking the direct bus from guatemala city to flores but once you're in that mind set $7 sure seems a lot.

mexico was worlds hotter than any other place we went. i was lucky to score a top bunk in the hostel luckily church was the perfect amount of a/c and i got there an hour early so i stayed 4 hours in righteous air flow. AND i met this nice couple from cali that took me out to dinner after church.

playa was beautiful and hot. i luckily ran early in the morning on monday but my lil body is not used to soo much air and humid thick air as well. i laid out on the beach for a few hours and then showered before my bus to the airport. of course the best thing about being in mexico, other than the beach was the tacos al pastor. i do have to say they weren't as good as cuernavaca's but i still walked a bit just to have them at night. i wish there'd be a bigger following in slc on this delicious pork but maybe with time.

i just became american again

dang it! so i´m sweating here on a computer in Chetumal Mexico and can totally smell myself, which is not pleasant. the poor lad that has to sit by me on the bus i guess has it worse. i just became an impatient american again. i´ve been doing so good singing bob marley´s¨every littal ting gonna be all right¨ ...but i thought there´d be a bus every hour but i have to wait for 3 hours to start my last leg of the longer bus rides. needless to say... the trek from Guatemala City has been...well...LONG. not 25 hours straight long but still long.

after a delightful but short time with the Bawden´s in Guate, we dropped off Annika and Amanda to the airport and made our way to one of the bus terminals. so... i probably should have taken the advice of Hermano Bawden to take the direct bus to Flores but i was a lil anxious just to get going. bus travel is not quite on time always and i wanted a guarentee (i can´t spell anymore) that i can get to mx and quickly, so i decided to take the no-direct bus which i still thought was going to go the same way my friends and i came down from flores BUT... I was wrong. Fuente del Norte seems luxurious enough to have a whole seat to yourself but it became like the other chicken buses only a few hours into the 12 hour trip. so on the bright side i saw more of guatemala, including a peek of rio dulce which we decided not to go to.

i made many lil friends along the way, including a kid from japan who´s Spanish wasn´t the best so we found a hostel in flores together. i continue to meet kind and gently chipenes (sp?) o tezcos that are more than kind in helping me practice my Spanish. i think i´m more interesting now that i´m by myself and the only gringa on the bus, but hands down i´ll never beat the cute blondes who were asked outside a mall in guate if they lived in hollywood and were models :)

anyways onto playa to spend 2 nights before the flight out.

AND may i just say i could spend days on a belizian bus. it´s such a weird switch to hear english and have such a diversity in central america but i´m secretly in love that in both bus rides there, there´s a strange love for 80´s (and early 90´s) hits and i... slightly shamefully knew every song that was played. it was a great flashback from cindy lauper to lady in red. it was just plain enjoyable with plenty of room even if you´re sharing a seat. i had to just sing along.

so time is getting short but i´m ready to come back and i´m itching to see my family, especially my lil sis. also since this is my 7th country my head is hurting to try to change money at the right rate.

more attractive pictures later when another computer functions better!

full circle

so now i am back in antigua guatemala. it is kind of nice to be back to some place you know. copan was nice but it was also nicer to return to water that is not brown...and this is a picture on a light day... and electricity on full time. lucky for me i finally got a ticket back to the states BUT i am flying out of cancun to get there. so friday is when my friends head for the airport and i head back to the bus station heading north. when you save 300 dollars you save 300 dollars... there is no arguing with that. besides i have still got to go to arkansas this summer and spend some quality time with the family. word on the street is my sister has a job teaching people to drive boats and yet i wonder if she has ever driven a boat herself... hmmm....

also here is a pic of amanda and i grubbing some delicious pupusas

on to shopping for gifts for peeps