Kolaches for Sale

Just saying the name of the pastry makes my mouth water.

Have you heard of kolaches? If you're a Texan, chances are that you know these wonderful baked goods. I remember I used to stop by West, Texas on my way up to Dallas or down to San Antonio just for some great sweet or meat-filled kolaches. Mmmmm. I guess you can say that Chris and I miss being in Texas sometimes as he has started making kolaches. The fillings he's made so far are cream cheese, fruit jelly, sausage and cheese, sausage and jalapenos and ham and cheese.

This is a picture of all the fillings/flavors.

Wow! They have come out so delicious!

He actually makes them and sells them at work. He's really enjoying it. He loves to see what people think and is still trying to perfect the recipes and fillings based on feedback.

I sometimes think it's kind of crazy to put so much effort (4 hours) into these little delicious treats. I'm not complaining though - I enjoy these reminders of good ole Texas.

Texas Texas Yeeehaw!

PS. We are now accepting internet orders. All major credit cards accepted.

Chris's Little Helper

Yup, it's that time of year again when the trees have already turned their beautiful colors and have fallen...all over our yard. Chris was busy this past Sunday picking up the leaves and trimming the trees. He wasn't alone though. He had Chancho right at his side the entire time.

Chancho wanted to help by chewing on all of the branches, even if they were way to big for him.

Chris and I have noticed very early on that Chancho just loves being with his "dad." For example, if I'm cuddling with him, Chancho will turn his whole body so that he's facing Chris and can stare at him. If Chris is ever out of the house, Chancho whines and whines to be with Chris. So, this Sunday was no exception. He just stared at Chris and wanted to be right with him...helping him out. That stinker!

Grand Canyon National Park

Grand Canyon National Park Highlights

Nights without a shower: 4 (we showered on Wednesday evening)

Bathroom Quality: Better than Zion.

On Tuesday morning, we got to the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park. YAY!! We were so excited to be there. The area was heavily wooded and very nice. We got to our campsite and started to set up camp. We decided to take it easy that day, chill, explore a little and rest. We played dominos, visited the little grocery store at the campsite, went to the lodge to visit the ranger station and see what all the events were during our stay and made some kabobs that evening. We also attended the ranger-led program that night that talked about the history of the North Rim. We also went to the ranger-led program at the lodge - I fell asleep, but Chris really wanted to learn about the pre-historic creatures that lived at the Grand Canyon. Some of the differences between the North and South Rims are that the North Rim is forested, the trails are more difficult and it's much more secluded and the crazy black/white squirrel lives only in the North Rim.

The South Rim is the more popular place to go as you can see more of the intricasies of the rocks.

Also, on this great day, we found out there was a recycling machine that would give you 15 cents for every can or bottle you recycled. VERY NEAT! This became Chris' hobby of the day. He even went into the trash cans from around our campsite to get more bottles to recycle. Yes, my friends, this gives you a little insight into Chris. He gets into these interesting little projects. You could see the joy in his face once we recycled enough cans to buy himself a liter of water for hiking the next day. He was so proud of himself. HAHA!

Wednesday, oh , Wednesday!

The day came when we would do our grand hike. We would hike down into the Canyon in a decent of 3,000 feet and up the canyong 3,000 feet. It was regarded as an exremely streneous hike. But we were going to do it! We got our waters, lunch and clothes ready the night before. We got up at 5:30am and off we went. For me, the hike down wasn't too bad. The sights were wonderful! You can see the trail were were going on in this picture if you look closely:

We were one of the only ones on the trail that morning. Chris didn't have hiking shoes, so his feet were suffering a bit going down. I was getting hot and since most of the trail had no shade... the sun was really hard on you. Also, the deeper you got into the canyon the hotter it got. The air was very very dry and hot. There were areas where water was running down the canyon though and I would stick my hands in it to cool down and even took my shirt off and wet it and my cap. It was a nice relief. After 3 hours of climbing down the canyon, we got to our destination - Roaring Springs - which was a really nice waterfall. We had a nice relaxing lunch. We had about a 20-minute break and were headed back. About a minute into our hike back, Chris stopped in front of me and was very still. He later told me that it was a snake passing us by. I, of course, started to freak out and wanted to run my way out of the highly vegetataed area. We soaked our hats in the water one last time and off we went onto our up-hill climb. This is the view we had in front of us - the view of what was in store for us to climb. You see the top of the tree line in the center - that's where we were climbing to. Only 30 minutes into the climb, I was getting very tired... and only 1/4 into it, I was ready to stop hiking. The heat was getting to me. I was only taking baby steps and was stopping every ten minutes for a rest and sometimes for a drink of water. Chris was understanding and patient. This is a picture of our narrow trail (yes, I look exhausted because quite frankly, I was).

For me, the half-way point, the point where I would feel that I didn't have that long to go was the bridge we crossed. Again, I look exhausted and terrible - because that's exactly how I felt. See how Chris looked nice and refreshed... hehe

Well, what I didn't know was that the worst was ahead of me. The steepest, most difficult part of the trail was left. We don't have picture of this, but the trail was pretty much sand (fine, like you would find on a beach), very steep, full of pieces of wood that would simulate stairs and MANY switchbacks. It was hard on a mental standpoint because you would get to a point where you think you're making progress and then you could have to almost turn around and go the opposite way. Like a big S. I was so tired that I wanted to cry... but I just didn't have the energy to cry. Chris would tell me frequently, "This is the last leg" or "We're on the home stretch," but we weren't. We still had a long way to go. LONG way to go.

When we finally got to the top I found myself not being able to walk faster than a baby would. I was taking every moment very slowly. We actually didn't do so badly. It took us 4 hours to climb out of the canyon... with a total of 7 hours total to hike that day.

Our prize was a nice hot shower and a nice meal. We were supposed to eat at the Lodge that evening, but because they were booked, we ate a nice steak dinner at the campsite. Needless to say, we went to bed early that night.

On Thursday, we got up later, made a nice breakfast and took a mule ride along the top of the canyon and went on a short hike to get a grand view of the canyon.

We got to eat a SUPER romantic dinner at the lodge at the time the sun was setting (we got a window seat facing the sunset). It was our first meal at a restaurant in several days.

On Friday, we woke up very early and heading East to Mesa Verde National Park. This was our last park before heading home.

Zion National Park

Zion National Park Highlights
Nights without a shower: 3
Bathroom Quality: Not as good as Arches, were a little older and the sink area gross, but still okay. We got spoiled at Arches.
Something new: We saw wild turkeys that were roosting (flying to the top of trees to sleep for the night). At a certain time, they all go to their trees and go to sleep. We also found out that we have more room inside our sleeping bags if we zip them together (we have those adjoining sleeping bags). I thought having a sleeping bag to yourself would give you more room.

Zion is located in the southwest corner or Utah (pretty much bordering Arizona). We got to the park and started to drive to the trail that Chris had read about. I was the navigator and felt pretty confident we were driving on the right road until we got to all these tunnels. Chris questioned were we were and I found out we had gone the wrong way. Figures. We turned around and were trying to get on the road to that trail and noticed that it wasn't open to the public - you had to take a shuttle up to all the trails. Okay - now we know that going to the visitors center is very helpful to find out all about the quirkly rules at each park. We put on our hiking clothes and off we went. We had the funniest and most helpful driver... cute older man who convinced us that The Narrows was THE trail to go to at the park. I didn't know what I was in for. We hiked to the river and found people were actually hiking on the river... as if the river water was the trail. Wow - we got hiking sticks (left by some rocks by previous hikers) that were actually broken tree limbs and we went "hiking" along a canyon. The trail that you followed was the river with water that went up to your knees at some points. By the way, the water was very cold. Chris found a deeper area of water and since we hadn't taken a shower in days, he took his shirt off and inside the "pool" he went. After letting out a yell (because the water was so cold), he had a huge satisfying smile on his face. Of course, I followed and got in to take my "bath" and it was super nice...yet so cold.

I was starting to get a little worried about half an hour into it as we were one of the only hikers going "inside" the canyon. It was around 3:30pm when we started our hike. Well, we kept on going and got to some really fun areas where the canyon was very narrow and the sun hit the rocks in a really cool way.

The actual hike was a little hard because even though you aren't climbing very steep mountains, you are hiking over rock and water current, which can be slippery and tricky. After about 2 miles, we found a couple trekking back and they said that they had gone for a while and the river didn't stop... so we decided to head back since we were getting cold and tired. We later found out that the trail doesn't really end, it's a river system that would take us north into Utah. Yikes! Glad we got out in time. That night, we had some delicious hot dogs, smores and went to bed pretty early as we would have to get up and head to the Grand Canyon the next morning.

This part was my favorite as the trail and experience was very unique.

Arches National Park

Phew - Sorry it took way too long to write again. Okay, so where were we? Ohh... Arches National Park.

Arches National Park Highlights

Nights without a shower: 2

Bathroom Quality: Wonderful, updated, nice and private bathrooms that were environmentally friendly (powered by solar panels)

The second day started with a nice, dry and hot morning walk around more arches. After about an hour or so, we decided to come back for lunch and continue to explore in the afternoon. You wouldn't think it would be so hot in the morning, but we were getting tired faster than expected. After lunch we went to visit a beautiful arch - on which we climbed up to it easily and I had a TERRIBLE experience getting down from it. Imagine trying to climb down 15 feet of rock that is so steep that you can barely see the rock beneath you.. you can see the ground (rock as well) that you are trying to climb down to. What didn't help was that my head was playing tricks on me... I felt like I was going to fall and crack my head open or break something. I was paralyzed. I even had an older man trying to help me by giving me tips on how to climb down. I was terrified, breathless and ready to lose it. Chris had to give me pointers on where to put my feet and one step at a time I reached the bottom. All of that fear was expressed through many many tears that fell once I felt safe on the ground. Phew! This is the view of the arch from far away.

Off we wen to another trail that lead to a mountain with very narrow passageway. It was awesome. The view of that arch was unbelievable... That night we had a nice dinner and went to check out that evenings ranger-lead program about the animals at Arches. We star gazed for a while that night too - we saw so many shooting stars, the international space station and what we thought was Saturn. The sky at Arches was by far the best for star gazing.

PS. The reason I put "nights" without a shower and not days is because even though we showered on Saturday morning, we hiked and got pretty sweaty - so that mornings shower was cancelled out by how gross we felt that night after hiking that day.

PSS. I put down shower quality because when you aren't taking showers, if you get stuck with gross bathrooms as well, it makes you feel even dirtier. This was something I can to appreciate quickly.