March 2026 – kristilynk

Spring for a day

My daughter, Kiah, got some news that the wildflowers at Bartlett Lake were wild flowering! We made plans to leave at 6am to start our field trip, it was Feb 28th and while the rest of the world was unburying itself from snow, we were looking at temps in mid 90’s.

The drive from the west side is about an hour and a half, we snacked on beef sticks and engird drinks along the way. Somehow we missed the store that sold the park passes but luckily there was a kiosk on the side of the road close to the entrance. The cost for a day pass at that kiosk is 12 dollars for 1 car but at a store front they are 8 dollars.

After we parked, we were on the hunt for our trail – which I found using All Trails – it is a great app but the app is only as good as the user. I am not that great with maps, I could not find it anywhere so we improvised and just picked another trail.

This was a desert stroll, not a hike. We were on a mission to find these spectacular wild flowers! The actual Bartlett Reservoir trail is 4.5 miles but we only did an easy, light trail round trip was only 2.5 miles and only a 387 foot elevation gain.

The views were amazing but notice anything? Yea, I noticed too…no wild flowers to be found. Most specifically, we were looking for the poppies.

Along the way, we passed a couple of people walking their dog and also trying to wildflower hunting. They had an extra piece of cardboard, in the shape of a flower vase, it had holes so they could poke the stems of the flowers in it – super cute and they gave one to Kiah.

Eventually, we did run in to a teensy tiny display.

Moving right along, because you know..not much to see here. The trail led us to the “beach” where we took a moment to enjoy the sound of the water moving back and forth, there was a breeze that was perfect.

It wasn’t long before we started the walk back to the car

More flowers along the way and of course some fluffy cactus. The ride home was uneventful, thought about stopping for breakfast but ended up waiting until we got home ~ Alex, Kiah’s husband (that still sounds so weird LOL, my daughter has a husband..) brought us some egg bites and iced coffees instead.

It was a great ending to a beautiful morning.

Feb 2026 NL, Part 6

In my last posting, I was having difficulties adding pictures and videos. I figured out that I had used the free 3 GB’s and if I wanted to continue this blog, I needed to upgrade.

I’m back so that mean I fell for the trap and I am now a paying member of this society. pshhttt.

So, we left off in Baarn at Kasteel Groeneveld. After wandering the grounds, we took a stroll on the inside

I read somewhere this Castle has the largest collection of copper ware in the Netherlands – I did not see it but next time I will ask because that would have been neat to see.

After a quick walkthrough, we all piled in the Countryman Mini Cooper. All five of us. Esther, Yvonne in the front, Jason, Brian and Shannon in the back seat and me…in the hatchback.

Hind sight, I should have asked someone to take my picture because you just cannot get the gist of it. It was fun and thankfully a quick ride back to Esthers house. We dropped off Oma (Yvonne) and headed back to downtown Utrecht so we could catch our tour of the DOMunder.

DOMunder is a subterranean tour that explores over 2000 year of history. From Roman times to medieval times and post. The destruction is all down there, underground. Before you get to the real cool stuff, the guide talks to us about the significance of what we are about to experience. The guide spoke in Dutch so that was fun trying to piece together what he was saying. My Dutch is extremely limited, like first grade level limited. When that is done, they give you a flashlight and some headphones so you can flash the light on the pieces and get a narrative in your ears of what you’re looking at.

That is all the photos I have and since today is March and this happened a month ago I don’t remember what we did after. Probably went to eat, packed up and then off to sleep because we had a long trip a head of us the next day!

I can’t wait to go back.

Feb 2026 NL, Part 5

We started the day at he market, one last time, Jason really loves the herring! I did not partake this go round but I did peep some pretty pretty mushrooms

After the market, we took a short walk down one of the many side streets from the market plain. It was time for a real breakfast, well that was the idea but I ended up ordering a salmon salad. Way off base but super delicious.

This was our view while we waited for foods. Sadly I do not remember the name of the place.

After brunch, I guess I’ll call it, We hoofed it back to the cave to wait for our ride. Esther came to pick us up – we all 5 piled into a Mini Cooper Countrymen – the driver was only about 40 minutes – we walked around Soest, the childhood home of Jason and Shannon. It was neat to see their faces light up and all the fun memories bubbling up.

Shit picture but this was in the right behind their old house, I thought I had a pic of them in the front of their house but I think Brian took that one and not me.

Cute little pond that in the coldest of winters will freeze up and they could ice skate, right behind their house. So cool.

We popped back into the car and headed over to the Castle! Kasteel Groeneveld is in Baarn, NL. Esther and her family lived at this castle for 6 years in while growing up. I can’t even imagine, ME: Oh yes, friends, just droppedp me off at my house. FRIEND, uhmm, yea OK. You guys, this was her literal home. Built in 1710 as an example of a typical country home.

Esther dropped us off and headed back to her house to pickup Oma (Jason & Shannons mom). We met at the cafe at the Castle and had some Frites and Coffees. Our time was pretty limited because we had to be back to Utrecht for our tour of the DOMunder. More on that later. Here are some pretty pics of the Castle outside for you to enjoy.