mountain drive with a side of nature

Fifteen years ago I was 11 and the drive from Albuquerque toward Moriarty seemed like it took forEVER. Like bring a snack and a good joke book (Joke books! Classic 11 year old hobby.) because we're startin' the oregon trail, yeehaw type of trip. And this was before instant text messages and internet news updates every microsecond so I guess I'm saying kids have always had a problem with delayed gratification regardless of the current technology. Take that, Huffpo article about Kids These Days.

Needless to write, now that I have 3 to 5 gray hairs, the trip into the mountain feels like seconds.

I think the current technology at the time I was 11 was the encyclopedia on CDs my parents kept by their PC. If I wanted to look up cucumbers I'd have to find the "C CD" and put it into the CD drive and wait for it to pop up on screen and the little hourglass would flip over and over because things like that took actual minutes back then. Also, our email domains were either netscape or aol. I think my email was lilyofthevalley95@netscape.com. Or maybe lilyofthevalley95 was my password. Good password incidentally. Back then, using letters AND numbers in your password was very high level hacker. By the way, what were we using our emails for back then? Probably emailing our own family members who were living in the same house as us. Ha. Classic 90's internet.

Anyway.

We took a drive to the top of Sandia one Saturday this past summer. Here are the pics.

The scenic drive reminds me of John Denver album covers. And the 70's. It's probably not fair to the flora and fauna of the current wilderness. I can see their arguments now: 'heeeeey maaaaaan, just because nature became a "thing" in the 70's doesn't mean you can't give us a more up to date analogy.' You're right, nature. The drive up the mountain reminds me of the three wolf moon shirts I saw at the MEN show from last week. Owww-WOOOOOOOOOOoooooo!

This was all underwater 200 million years ago! Wouldn't it be cute if dinosaurs had blogs? And they would write their thoughts on the web. Like, actual webs. From spiders.

Albuquerque, presented to you by Bill Gates.

Something about this feels very World of Tomorrow even with the capris and REI hiking sandals.

On the way home the wind filled in our silences. We stopped for a quick minute to watch middle-aged retired hippies hike along a trail. They reminded me of John Denver album covers too.

Goodbye summer mountain day! See you next year.

beachy keen

I think you will enjoy these snaps I took in North Carolina.

I am only posting the most interesting, pretentious snaps and totally not the ones of duck museums or 1..2...3...say cheese plastic smiles or any other facebook quality OMG, SUMMER VAKAY! boring disasters. I PROMISE*.

*Pinky promise, double kiss.

On vacation, it's fun to adopt a new personality to see if it suits me better than my regular schlumpy self. This time I became the kind of person who eats a healthy breakfast. Even though I ate it at a quarter 'til noon. Still counts.

New Summer. New Bikini.

Because of how unassuming and natural seagulls look, I never noticed how large and sharp their bills are until one got close enough to almost pluck out my eyeballs. They are like the koala bears of the avian world. Watch out! Do not touch!!

This scene is missing: pile of magazines, cooler of sodas, hot guy walking by in low rise surf shorts, and lisa frank dolphins in the background.

Ew, but also cool. I asked Jack to wear this as a helmet so I could take a picture and laugh about it for hours but he said 'no' as in what? like, excuse me? what? I thought I was your bossy older sister and you did whatever I told you???? When did you grow up?

World Cup... USA... Wooooo... We watched the game where they beat Algeria and pretended like we've been soccer fans since forever ago.

I had no part in this :(

I fell in love with this Brit punk newspaper print bikini bottom at Benjamin Franklin (Outer Banks local shore store) for $14 but it was only in medium and I am very much a large or extra large so obviously I convinced myself that my whole ass does not need to be covered, right? Right. Anyway, the beachbillies (hillbillies at the beach) wear upside down shirts as swim trunks sometimes so I think I'm in the clear here.

homina-homina-homina... drool. Best chips ever.

Probably one of the best feelings at the shore is how normal it feels to be sitting around in what is essentially wet underwear. Ok, that sounds disgusting but you know what I mean.

Do you want to see shopping pics? They are ridiculous.

Seriously?

Ok, seriously?!

Seriously!?!

SERIOUSLY?! WHY?!

That is the end of the shopping pics. Let's get back to the normal world:

The sunsets in North Carolina...

The sky fades into cotton candy and bubble gum pinks, fiery oranges and sweet hues of purple I've never seen anywhere else in nature. It's enough to make me smile now, 2000 miles and months away from it all.

Da-dun. Da-dun. Da-dun. (Jaws song).

We didn't go night swimming but it still feels scary-exhilarating standing near the water at night. Da-dun.

The moon and pier.

The next day I had the oh so important job of sitting around the house while everyone else went fishing, driving to the lighthouses, swim-tanning and souvenir shopping. OK, NO ONE ASKED ME TO STAY INSIDE ALL DAY, but I finally had the whole house to myself and my tan was veering a little too closely to roasted turkey skin so everything worked out :)

A very odd lamp at the beach house.

Welcome back, fam :)

Probably the most exciting night was seafood smorgasbord din din nite. We ate shark and wahoo, clams and crabcakes, shrimp and softshell crab sammies. And then afterward, Carol and I watched two hours of Courtney Love Behind The Music and basically my mind was blown to pieces. I forgot how much I capital L love Courtney Love. She inspired me to wear my plastic barrettes down around my eyes and re-listen to Live Through This. Best night.

Last day at the house. Sigh... everything's nostalgic during goodbyes...

Hot, nostalgic skimboard guy...

Nostalgic brother laughing at lobsterskin people...

Beachbillies nostalgically being attacked by giant jellyfish...

Overweight tourists being nostalgic...

Hot lifeguard actually doing a lifeguard thing (raising binoculars up to his face nostalgically)...

Sigh... Bye bye beach!!!!!!!!!!! SAD FACE!!

The next week we lived in Elizabeth City which is an hour from the shore and this is becoming boring so bla bla let's move on.

And because I am a desert person, I take snaps of the rain. Sue me.

Did you know that little girls actually go around selling homemade brownies to earn money for a new bicycle with pink tassels? Did you know that that ACTUALLY HAPPENS? I witnessed it. Weird.

Oh, right. This was my new adult fashion philosophy, I'll get into it later.

I left all these magazines at my grandparent's house so next year I can be like "ew, gross!! We were wearing sequins in 2010??! Like, that is so old oh my gawd!"

And this, for some reason, exists. "Mommy? Can I have generic barbie doll made from the melted plastics of a methodone clinic?"

Home Sweet Home.