Hi everyone. Its been a fun week filled with good things. Happy Mothers Day to all my moms out there as well.

So Tuesday was sewing at Winton. Mom Yolanda was working in the kitchen so I went and helped her. Awhile back id made crockpot chicken tacos and had forgot about them but we had them for lunch at sewing and they were tops! Recipe here🙌 so easy. http://pinterest.com/pin/557461260117489881/?source_app=android

Wednesday was good. I went through some stuff at home for garage sale items. Worked outside abit. The garden is rocking this 85 degree weather. It cools off to 55ish at night so perfect weather. Also we had teriyaki chicken with garlic quinoa for supper so our first quinoa try was a success. Thanks for all your ideas everyone!

Thursday. Hmm. I worked on laminating school stuff like my calendar and numbers. Mom sent me two boxes of our decorations for my future classroom theme so I went through all the things and got super enthused. Its handy having taught several years and having to not buy a lot of stuff. In the evening we took our garage sale items to folks (they had a garage sale saturday) and I priced things while Morgan and Ja worked on the vanagon and bought some groceries. Then we headed home and packed a backpack.

Friday morning we left at 8. Ja, Morgan and I in the van with our ice chest, swim gear, and definitely not enough warm clothes. We drove away east for awhile. I was cozy with my blanket and moccasins and The Long Winter which is quite a good book I’m reading. The mountains were beauty and the van made it to the top of Sonora Pass surprisingly. (elev. 9600) we had lunch in bridgeport at an odd cafe with local folks. Drove off into the mountain foothills after lunch and found Bodie which is a 100ish building ghost town.

Read about it here👉 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodie,_California. If you look this up you can also see a little map of where we were located in California. We walked around the town for awhile. It was eerie and cold and blowy and was so odd to think of this place once being the 3rd largest city in Cali. The town is preserved completely how it was left and there are signs of everyday life in the houses. It was really cool. Left there and drove to Mammoth Lakes to a thrift store because we were all freezing and it was cold and snowy. The guys bought jackets and we got some toques. Then drove out to Wild Willies Hot Springs where we camped. Its high desert with scrubby low plants and yucca and surrounded by mountains which I didn’t see when we arrived because of the driving snow.haha. David & Paul & Justin & Shenda met us there and we managed to set up camp a bit and get sausage and potatoes frying for supper.

After supper in the dark in swim stuff in snow we walked 1/2 mile to the hot springs which are just random holes steaming in the ground. Its a geothermal area with minerals staining the ground and coloring some of the grasses. We sat in the hot pots and watched falling stars. Perfect. Morgan, Ja and I slept on our bed in the vanagon. It was cold but we managed fine.

Saturday we had breaky over the fire and the guys went to the springs again. My suit was frozen so I laid in the sun by the van and thawed our items. We left and drove to Bishop and had lunch before heading out of town to a place where the guys did some bouldering and rock climbing. Went back to our site and cooked steaks over the fire..the clouds were low over the mountains and it started misting a bit. After supper we drove a couple miles farther out in the middle of the desert to another spring that was unfortunately full of people so we saw another steaming pot farther away and walked to that. I feel it wasnt necessarily set up for human habitation like the others were. It was more of a deep swamp that bubbled and the water was murky but warm. When we stepped in we sank to our knees in loam/mud/clay or something. And we hunkered over the vents in the mist in this swamp of weeds and bushes and it was so fun. Got back to the van smelling of hard boiled eggs and full of odd silty sand. Headed home away over the pass with poor visibility and bad roads full of snow but got home at 2 and slept in a warm bed. Yay.

Sunday I missed my mom and grandmas. Went to uncle evans for lunch with the koehn side. C.E. service in the evening and our friends perrin&nikki after church.

Today I tried to wash our camping things which took awhile. Went for groceries and to the bank. Worked on some watercolor prints for awhile and watered gardens of course! We met some of Morgan’s pals for supper and the guys played basketball later. Spending some time with my amazing husband and my best brother in law in the mountains and high desert over the weekend improved my mental health I think. I loved it. Cheers to a good week for each of you.❤