THE Denver rock show!

HFSB, Batman!  a giant quartz crystal cluster

One of the things SO SPOT-ON about the new jobs Joel and I landed, is the opportunity to continue traveling and take more trips.  (The Universe is so catering to us!  and by us, i mean EVERYBODY.)

Every year, our biz partners go to Denver in the Fall, and Tucson in Winter, to buy new inventory at the giant rock and gem shows.  So on Sept. 12th,  Joel and I packed up our tent & sleeping bags again into the truck, and hit the road in mid-september to make the trek and join our comrades in Denver for a few days of shopping and marveling at crazy rock specimens.  We had three national parks in mind to check out.  The show itself was gonna be fascinating!  A surprise and worthwhile detour in Colorado awaited us.   More great (free) camping spots were discovered.  and we got startlingly close to some critters one camp night on our way home!

Driving north and leaving Sedona is really fascinating.  All this red rock, short vegetation, big mesas, expansive spaces, and mountainous foothills surround every direction.  Drive the winding road north only several miles up Oak Creek Canyon and the rocks become more grey, tall pine trees begin to dominate, and visibility is limited.  That pops you out on top of the Mogollon rim and into Flagstaff; green meadowy grasses, predominantly pine trees, more moisture in the air, and Mt. Humphrey overlooks it all.  Begin to leave Flagstaff and the mountains drift away, trees become sparse, barren land takes over, down to nothing, and it's pretty flat.  Flat, flat, flat... not much around, until getting to Utah... is so fantastically weird.  Odd, worn-away rock formations stand sporadically all over the place, and reddish-rock arches seem very common. 

We drove through Monument Valley again (3 times in the last few months?!!👍) and spent our first night just outside Moab, Utah, on BLM land that proved a noteworthy nook for overnight.  I was impressed with how quiet it was for being not too far off the busy highway, but tucked around a corner and behind a nice hill.  there were others out there with us but there was lots of space between everyone.  The moon rose just after we got our tent pitched.  I hung a string of little flowery across the top and we ate something for dinner, then turned in for bed not long after.  We slept great, got up with the sun and made our way into town to gas up, eat at a local diner,and then hit Arches National park. WOW.

near Moab, UT.   Do you see the little ppl's down there?  :)

 all these arches.  what...? incredible.  (lots of pics in the link at the end.)  We spent a few great hours here.  it got really HOT tho, and we had to bail on walking the longer trails.  we gotta go back sometime!   
We split in late afternoon to make it all the way to Denver, for an overnight at my friend's home.  Our original ETA was for 10ish,  but we ended up being a couple hours later due to the unforeseen drive opportunity thru:  Colorado national monument.  Ever been?   The road takes you up high, to the top of a plateau, then winds along the top of it, ducking through some woodsy, hilly patches here and there.   the views are huge, looking down sheer cliff canyon walls, before spitting you out into the city of Grand Junction.  i really didn't want to possibly disturb my friend's family by coming in so late that night, but HOLY BUCKETS, am i glad we did that drive!  (and friend was fine with our arrival ;)

Colorado nat'l monument.  👍👍👍

The following day, this sweet friend, Gayle, and her two little daughters, took us to show off their plot in the nearby community garden.  Gayle grows many medicinal herbs and beautiful flowers!  And we had just enough time for a little hike with some Big views, that took us behind the Flatirons (Mtn range).  I'm so thankful for this time we shared with them before driving into the city that afternoon.

a hike with friends.   Boulder, CO

We didn't take many pictures at the gem show we came for, but i did nab a few, of both big and small growths (mostly types of quartz).
It was all quite dazzling, to say the least!  SO MUCH to look at.  so much... energy.  it was definitely something i enjoyed to experience for myself, and i look forward to the next one we go to.

The last day we encountered a clever man who constructs himself & walks around inside his own, large dinosaur puppets.  right place, right time:  a small kid approach this guy and I overheard him ask "Will you step on me?!"  
The kid laid down on the floor and this guy raised his big dino leg and brought his foot down on him.  HA!HA  (don't see that everyday)

While we were at this show, we had to stock up on inventory to sell back in Sedona, at our local arts&crafts fair, select weekends throughout the year.  Mike asked if i would help with picking out a nice selection of Madagascar sculptures- pretty or interesting ones that i think would sell at our shows.  I had so much fun choosing things... it felt exhilarating, like a shopping spree!  He said the dealer was gonna swing us a great discount, being we buy from them regularly, so he told me to go to town.  and i did!!   not only that, they've been selling

wonderfully!  some of what we chose, Mike is even keeping aside so he can cut into it, find more pretty, hidden areas, make multiple, different pieces, and yield a greater profit than from selling it as a chunk.  he was very pleased.  We all were!  it was a wonderful time, both shopping and just oogling at the incredible, dynamic specimens of various minerals, crystal structures, meteorites, and rocks.  Joel and I got to meet a couple of the dealers we'll be purchasing more from in the future, such as this friendly married couple from Uraguay, who sells us salt rock lamps.  And another married couple, Oxana and Andre, from Russia, who provide our plethora of high-grade shungite material.   This business is nothing short of fascinating and beautiful souls.
After 3 days of walking and looking around, our eyeballs and brains were overloaded!  It was the end of the show week, so folks were starting to pack things up.  Counrtenay and I negotiated some nice deals on smaller items for the arts&craft show.   we got our truck loaded up with the giant salt-rock lamp purchase Mike made, and began our drive back to Sedona in the late afternoon.  (A big Thank You again to all the sweet friends who hosted us overnight during our whole visit! 🌞)

We left Denver and spent some time in Glenwood Springs, such a cool town!  In a great spot- the middle of the mountains, with hot springs, and we'll spend more time there in the future.  We went looking for these open hot springs our friends told us about, but failed to find them.  Somehow tho, we did find other ones, off a dirt road, down a woodsy trail, in the middle of a beautiful, wild mountainside.  it was kind of sureal!  hot bluish water bubbled up out of the ground!  and a couple ppl were sitting in it.   it was really hot out this day, and we had no interest in climbing in!  but we were glad we stopped saw that it is there.  (on a snowy winter night, how amazing that would be!)  we drove on and spent the nite somewhere along the CO river, at free dispersed camp land.
what a KOOKY nite that was!!
(The following story not in complaining, but out of pure amusement 😛)

We got our tent set up down near the river just before dusk began.   behind our tent was a clump of trees and bushes, with a stone picnic table on the other side.  A number of our items were still sitting up there.  I plopped down in a chair to sit for a short bit and take in the beautiful evening , as Joel went up and out of my site to the picnic table.  several minutes later i noticed 2 fox on the bank of the river about 50 feet down from me. " WoW," i thought.  "how neat to see them.  i thought fox tend to be skiddish about ppl", so i thought it neato, and hoped joel would get to see them too, if he walked down slowly and quiet.  Well, he didn't come back softly, and they took off.  So maybe that was a special moment just for me. 😃  Then it started getting quite dark.  We were watching the moon over the water and joel thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye.  there were other ppl hanging out not very far from us.  were some kids out wandering around?  the main trail goes right by that picnic table.  Suddenly there was a LOUD sound of crinkling, like plastic, coming from the table area.  Joel jumped out of his chair, ran out of my sight and i heard him yell "HEY!" and he took off running down the path.

HAHA!  what was going on?!  i got out of my chair to see, and noticed one of the fox about 20 feet away from me.  "What's up!" i asked it.  it darted off.  i heard commotion on the actual road.  i walked up that way and noticed tortilla chips trailing across to the other side.
Joel came back saying he found the fox under a tree, bag of chips in his mouth, thrashing the crap out of it, then took off with it still in it's mouth.  Joel crossed the road to try and find them but only a few chips remained.   for a while tho, somewhere in the dark across the road, we thought we could hear the intermittent shaking of that bag! 

And this went on all night.   They were absolutely screwing with us.

there's a moon up there.

We went back to our chairs after the chip incident and they kept popping up around us, staring out from the bushes, eyes glowing as we shined our flashlights on them, or they stood in the trail under the moonlight, barely able to make them out, and saw them continue walking past that picnic table.   Even though much of our items on the table were big and bulky, it wasn't long before we decided to just move it all back into the truck.  i left out 1 pair of slip-on shoes and a string of lights to hang near the tent.  about a half hour after that, one of them ran off a short ways with my shoe!  so we got EVERYTHING off the table, and i hung my lights in the tree behind the tent.  I sat back down near joel and a minute later i turn to look next to me and HOLY SHIT! one is RIGHT THERE!!  i could have reached out and patted its head.  it startled me!  Sure caught me off guard.  and made me laugh!  Joel on the other hand was getting uneasy about them.  he didn't like them coming so near to us.  not long after the super-close-encounter, we turned in for the night.  in the middle of the night we were both jolted awake by something BOLTING by outside our door, then a looooong skidding sound.  joel scrambled to get his shoes on flew out of the tent!   A few minutes later he found the tent bag with the tie-cord broken.  once morning came, i discovered they chewed apart my string lights, making complete moop out them.  GaH!
so... we survived that fiasco!   and headed back into Utah that morning, to...
Canyondlands.  CANYONLANDS!  this place is crazy, and we only saw a very small portion of it.  the timing took us into it at sunset, and how lovely that was.  we walked around before it got dark and saw some incredible things.  it was like looking down on a canyon WITHIN a canyon...  so trippy.  SO MUCH MORE to see and hike here.  so we'll go back another time.  our real vision is to pull the RV and spend at least a month around this area, as there are several national parks all rather close together.  that will be a grand trip, for sure! 

canyonlands.

we could have returned to our previous spot in Moab to spend the night after leaving the lands of canyon, but we opted to try a new BLM area and see what it was like.
It was kinda weird!  but, accommodating.  i say accommodating because it had a porta-potty off the road, not too far a walk from where we pitched out tent, and we never see that.  altho how could they not have one?  there was NOTHING out here.  no vegetation.  absolutely barren.  "THANK YOU for providing a bathroom!" i felt immensely.  as for other campers around us:  it was crowded.  about half of what we saw were trailers, and RVs and motorhomes.  the rest were vans and cars.  i think we were the only ones in a tent!  we hit the road right away the next morning and got home in the early evening.

we got our salt-rock lamps back home safe and sound.  the small items we thought would sell hot at the arts&crafts sale were a HIT!   We sold out of many things like small rose quartz hearts, labradorite hearts, and double-ended Citrine chucks that look like they came out of a pirate treasure chest, and other things, that we'll stock up on again when we go to Tucson in 5 months.
All in all, another wonderful trip, all of the drive so lovely, lots to look at and see.  Life is good.

TallyHo!

click here for all the pics

this is out there.  (so it must be in you!)

South bound!

before.

BYE BYE cheese land and the state of many lakes!

August was nearing and we had to get back down south. 

AFTER! 

Our first day driving away from the Midwest I asked Joel if our return route through Colorado would bring us back to the UFO Watchtower.  "Can we stay there again?!" and he told me No, we were gonna go well past that area the day we trek through Colorado.  "Okay" i said, even though i really wanted to go back and sleep outside under the stars.  
We plowed through all of Iowa and made it to Benedict, KS, back to our friends' farmstead for a few nights (see Running Turtle Acres tab above).  They had WAY MORE goats!!  OODLES more chickens!  some ducks.  new cats.  the puppies weren't puppies anymore!  and the house was quiet- Lou and the 4 kiddos were visiting family in another state, so it was just us and Andy.   We had a blast together, living the small-town rural life again.  We went to the fair one day, hit up the ice cream social, and said 'hi' to all the prize-winning farm animals.  back at the house I spent time jumping in the pen with the goats, letting them walk up to me and i'd pet them.  other times I would sit close to the ground among the chickens.  I find many of the sounds they make to be so soothing and pleasant to hear!  Other times they just make me laugh.  certain ones would get really close, tip their head to the side, look me in the eyes and make funny noises at me.  Joel helped Andy with a project one day, making some headway on his "hoop house"- a greenhouse he wants to finish for winter.  He was so grateful for Joel to be there and help.  they had a very productive day.  after a few days there, it was time for us to hit the road again.



Our second day of travel got us all across Kansas back into Colorado.  Joel navigated while I drove.  I was oblivious to the route i was taking us... just lost in the scenery and my thoughts, following wherever joel told me to go.  We didn't hit foothills in Colorado till around dusk.  and I started to recognize some of the town names... from making this drive a couple months ago.  I said as much to Joel.  and it suddenly occurred to me... the UFO watchtower is out this way!!  Joel was not pulling my leg when I asked days ago about going back here.  Our timing was just off- we didn't make it as far as he reckoned we would today.  I saw a sign for Hooper. 
 "HOOPER!!" I exclaimed.  "Where the heck are we spending the night??"  i asked with a huge grin... waiting for him to answer... he was considering our location, pondering for a little while before saying anything, and sure enough... we ended up back at the Watchtower!  I was flippin'-out excited.  then i flipped-out even more when i remembered also how close we were to the sand dunes national park... and we were gonna have some time to play around tomorrow.  EEEEEEEE!

my dream came true!

 We pulled into the campground    around 11pm, again, apparently the only ones there.  It was MUCH warmer this evening compared to last time.  the moon was big, emerging above the horizon as we were setting up our tent.  Joel made a fire and we sat up for a while. "I have to sleep up on top of the tower tonight.  are you going to join me?"  No, he declined, as he preferred to stay snuggled up inside the tent for the evening.  So I packed my sleeping pad, bag, and some other goodies into my backpack and hiked my butt over that way.  I spent a little time looking around with my flashlight at the "garden" below the deck (pics in the link at the bottom), and sat on a bench for a while, taking in the beautiful moon-lit evening.  Before too long I heard scurrying all around me, very loudly in some areas more than others.  i'd flick my light on quick and point it toward the noises.  Mice!   they were scurrying all over, through the numerous knick-knacks and items placed throughout the oddball garden.  a number of them just stopped and stared at me, until I got up off the bench to go upstairs and make my bed.

There was a chill in the air but I was plenty warm and cozy all night.  I stared up at the stars and moon for at least an hour, reflecting on how wonderful a summer it had been so far, feeling so satisfied, and absolutely floored that I was laying up here now, just like I wanted to a couple months ago!  I drifted off into marvelous sleep, only waking a couple times, and then the pastel hues of pinks and blues started to appear.

good morning, Sunshine 🌞

As if waking up to this splendor wasn't wonderful enough, we still had two more days to arrive back in Sedona.  We packed up from the Watchtower and made our way over to the Great Sand Dunes national park.  WAHOOOOOO!!!!!!   I could hardly believe we were back here again already- and with time to play around this time- The dunes are amazing.  what a contrast of scenery amidst the Colorado mountains.  Am I in the Sahara??  It's absolutely picturesque.  some ppl were toting up then scooting down on boards much like the ones you'd use in the snow.  The sand was very hot and getting into our cracks of footwear.  I pretty quickly ditched my shoes and walked around in my socks.  it was HOT AS HELL, and we lasted a little over an hour.  I'd love to return and see it with show, or camp out sometime in the summer!  We shoved off just passed noon and planned to find a campsite before nightfall.  Our goal= Pagosa Springs, CO.  

A giant patch of sand dunes, in CO

We hit our goal for the day, and swung in to visit Chimney Rock national monument, but they were about to close down.  The guy manning the booth was very chatty, and ended up giving us a tip for free camping down along the Piedra river.  we took his advice and found a fabulous spot not far off the riverbed and slept like rocks alongside the babbling sounds of the water.  what a treasure of a spot!  Joel cooked us breakfast in the morning and i bathed lightly in the river.  There was something about being in the water that morning... sunshine on my skin, the water so refreshing, waking me up for the day, and i just felt so calm, and close to nature.  my true nature!  connected to and nurtured abundantly by the land.  i would love to experience this EVERY SINGLE DAY!  We hit the road just after 10am.

Today was our last day to get home.  Like on our drive up to the midwest, we were gonna pass thru Monument Valley (just before the boarder of Arizona), but have some time to look around and take it in this time.  
This was the second time we visited a place in the desert that reportedly had been without any precipitation for a YEAR, and while we were there, it rained!!  (??  what the heck is up with this?)  Drizzle began to fall when we parked at the visitor center to eat lunch.  We got out and walked around a bit until it started pouring.  Like so many places we have visited since getting our annual parks pass, this was a sight i'd only seen in pictures, movies, etc.  It's a gorgeous, strange landscape that I was excited to see for myself.  and actually, it seems most of Utah, and lots of Arizona is strange and gorgeous!  Weird spires, red rocks, small plateaus, random towers, all scattered apart from each other... the geology around here is something else!  There is a road you can take through more of the park, but we only ate lunch and looked at it from a deck off the visitor's center.  Joel wanted to get home before too late this evening, so we continued our drive, arriving us back around 9pm, safe and sound, another fun adventure under our belts, happy as clams.

I missed our little camper!  it was like reuniting with a great friend.  and there's just nothing like your own, cozy bed!!!  it was great to be home.  tallyho, TALLYHO!

click here for more pictures

THUNDER MOUNTAIN!!!  home sweet home ❤