life – Page 2 – kristilynk

PNW Summer II

Hoi! I’m back, earlier than even I thought. I think I am a bit more motivated to get the Oregon trip documented because tomorrow I am headed to Denver for a short trip. I am hoping getting this in the books will help me transition into posting on the Denver trip. Any hoosier… Here are some of my favorite pieces of eye candy from a day or two along the coast of Oregon.

Thors Well just outside of Yachats is a hole in the rocks in along the shoreline. It used to be a sea cave but it collapsed and now, during high tide, the water drifts in spouts with awesome splashes and then pulls back out to sea. The walk from the parking lot along the 101 was easy until I got to the slippery volcanic rock where I had to be careful not to slip and crack my skull. Also there are tide pool creatures laying about so I had also pay mind not to squash them. Its pretty epic and I could have sat there for hours watching, it never got old and the funny thing is that every time..I mean, every time the splash came we (there was quite a crowd) all ooooooo’d and awwwwww’d like we had never seen it before.

Next up, the obligatory Mo’s stop. Not necessarily next as in after Thor’s Well we went to Mo’s because I am pretty sure it didn’t happen in this order. Next up as in this was the next photo amongst the photo dump. Fresh seafood so of course no complaints. Well, one complaint. They did not even have fresh oysters. What was going on?

This lighthouse sits high up on a headland between Florence and Yachats. It sure was windy up there. I was disappointed it was not opened for me to climb around in but still cool, I do love a lighthouse. 205 feet below was this

These next round of photos I think were near the magical Hobbit Trail Head also in or near Florence.

We walked through gorgeous forestry and found ourselves at the end pretty quickly. The end was a secluded beach.

Welcome to my happy place. Next stop, Denver! TTFN

PNW Summer 2022

I cannot believe this trip was two months ago. I’ve been to Oregon now two times and I love it there. Not Portland though, Portland is a super sad, dirty place in dire need of assistance. That’s another blog that you won’t see written by me. I’m sorry Portland but I’m moving on. Moving on to the beautiful coast.

We flew in to Eugene, picked up our rental and headed out west like Fieval! The drive was filled with the color green at every turn. There first two nights we stayed in Yachats. Small little coastal town that I now keep checking Zillow for houses for sale. Yea, I have dreams. In this post, I will be ping-ponging around because I just did a little bit of a photo dump and I don’t feel like trying to remember places and things or order in general. All good, it gives you a teeny look into the inner workings of my brain. No order and super random.

Giant rock off the coast near her Devils Punchbowl. I think this actually may be called Otter Rock?

Otter Rock seemed to me to be a quaint surfer town of which I could see myself being a part of. At the top of the hill was a winery, it was a bit early in the morning to do any tastings but we did by a couple of bottles of wine. I mean, we had to of course, Jason is a Dutchman and the winery is called, Flying Dutchman Winery

I’m pretty sure this visit was our last day on the coast before we drove back to Eugene to stay one night and be close to the airport. So we grabbed our bottles and headed to Eugene. I am not sure how I feel about that town. I have a friend that lives there but I have never visited. The hotel we stayed at was not in the best neighborhood but it was just a place to lay our heads for a few hours before we woke up at dark thirty to get the airport.

On another day we spent the day in Depoe Bay (yep, poet and I don’t know it) whale watching. It was still wonderful to be out on the water even though there was no breaching and it was rainy. I had a an amazing breakfast omelet at the Gracies Sea Hag ocean view restaurant. Ok they ocean view but there is only like one or two windows and the restaurant is too dark for my liking but..but…but.. I had, for the first time ever..an OYSTER omelet. Yum. I have a can of oysters in my pantry waiting for me to be brave enough to try to recreate the Sea Hag omelet. Oysters in the pantry, gross?

Depoe Bay, smallest natural harbor in the world.

After whale watching we drove down to Newport, it may have been the same day or it could have been another day. Either way does not matter, what matters is that we went. Right? Right.

Our first trip to Oregon consisted of the continuous search for clam chowder and oysters, it was basically the only thing we ate. This time around, the search was not a success, we ate fresh oysters a total of one time. Disappointment.

After lunch we walked to Rogue Brewery, Was driving so I had coffee and Jason had some tasters.

To be continued. I think I have another day or two in photos to share. I am done concentrating for the day. Thanks for understanding. Until next time! Who can guess when that will be? Maybe tomorrow? Maybe next week or maybeeeee next year.

Lake Day

I love water. The ocean, the river, a pool, a hot tub – or is it a spa? Are all hot tubs spas? Are all spas hot tubs? – I love water.

I don’t love the lake. I mean, they’re beautiful, because its water but…to me, it feels… germy. Especially in Arizona. Its HOT, the water is just floating around, not really going anywhere. Kinda gross if you really focus on it.

With that said, I am trying to get past this. So, me and my friend and our mens met up at Lake Pleasant in AZ., the mens sat at the restaurant, on the water , had drinks and snacks while me and the friend putzd around on the lake with our paddle boards.

Rule #1 carrier your blow up paddle board down to the dock.

Rule#2 get comfy and don’t complain, it’s going to take about 5 minutes to blow up the board.

Rule#3 don’t be afraid to ask for help getting into your board from the dock.

There was some shade, thankfully, it was still hot 🥵

Once

On the water it was my bliss 😍 even though I did forget sunblock!

Insert catchy title here!

Feel free to read this post and title it for me. 😊 More often than not, I click the create blog post, the new, daunting, blank page beckons me to type the title of the new post. I stare blankly at this section of the post with an empty mind. OR, something dingy and random pops into my head and voila… that’s my title.

I have zero plans for this post. I have nothing and everything to say. We are 40 days into 2022, how is it going for you all so far? I feel like maybe be 2022 is going pretty well. I have so many activities going on in my head. This month I decided to try, dry February.

Why, you ask? I’ve read it’s good to give your body a break from alcohol, that it might not be a good thing for your organs to drink alcohol everyday. I chose February because it is the shortest month of the year 😃. They sayyyyy I may lose weight. That is if I can control my new desire to eat all of the cookies from a ridiculously good cookie shop called Crumbl that moved into the neighborhood. I’ll let you know how that goes come March 1.

I bought a few new plants that I love.

I am told this only needs to be watered one time per week. 😅 my type of plant!

To the right is Lavanda the Spanish Lavender and to her right is Rosemary.

I have not figured out how to care for those two babies. Jason has told me I should water them every two days. It seems like the Rosemary may need that but I think Lavanda can go every 5 days. These plants are my intro into horticulture. I love the idea of a raised garden bed in my backyard – this may or may not be on the plan for 2022. I’m not committing yet so settle down 😅

Until next time! Take care of yourself, you’re worth it! 🤩

You can’t really “make”time.

There are so many things we (humans) want or need to do. It’s said…a lot… you want it you have to MAKE the time to do it. There is no way to MAKE time. You have to change the way you use your time. This will take sacrifice or a game of if I do this I can’t do that. Example. I want to wake up an hour early to workout. I won’t because if I do, I can’t get that extra hour of sleep.

I’ve had a great day of “self care”. Yoga, manicure, putting around the house (ok really I was smudging the house with sage), took a stroll on the treadmill, did some journaling. It was lovely.

To do all of the things today, I had to sacrifice chilling at home with Jason and the muppet babies, my dogs for those of you who don’t know me. To write this random post, I’m sacrificing time. It means I’ll be late. We are having guests over and I still need to shower. I don’t want to so… here I am.

So I started this workbook called, “the artists way”. It told me to write three pages, long hand, each morning. It basically garbage. Not the idea, the idea is pretty cool especially because I’m writing about nothing. Only random thoughts, it’s pretty freeing, you wake up and write a few pages of all of the nonsense rolling around your brain first thing in the morning.

Some of the exercises are pretty intense if you want them to be. I don’t so I will cherry pick and sugar coat the things I don’t want to address in my mind. It’s week one. We’ll see how far I get. 😆

2022, day 1

Done, in the books! It’s officially 2022. My day started out with a casual 4.5 wog (walk/jog) on the treadmill in my garage. I didn’t want to leave my house so I opted for home “gym” time.

Afterwards, I cleaned to prepare for friends and fam time, showered and complete just in the knick of time! It was a full house minus a few people (a couple down due to Covid and one down due to work emergency).

We had everything bacon! Jason made brisket, Shannon brought her world famous potato salad (with bacon), Danny made Mac n cheese topped..with bacon, Wyatt brought field peas, green beans mixed with… you guessed it… BACON! Me think I will be trying two days meat free this upcoming week.

We listened to records, watched movies, Shannon brought tarot cards, ate and of course there were adult bevy’s.

Hence the reason my activity numbers are so low today. 😅

The 3 minutes of exercise might be when I did some dishes. 😂 All in all it was a good first day of the new year. I was happy to spend it at home, with people I love.

I cannot end this post without a picture of the most excellent meat slab. You’re welcome 😇

I’m told the red ring is called the “smoke ring”

Stupendous San Diego

My girls and I packed up, and by packed I mean threw some things in a backpack, and drove to San Diego for a fun filled day and a half.

We left pretty early so we could make the paddle out memorial for a local San Diego girl who succumbed to a rare brain tumor just a few weeks prior. Fuck cancer, by the way.

But praise be to all of these folks brave enough to paddle out to pay homage to their homie . The weather was amazing, it could not have been more perfect. There was something in the air I cannot place with words but I felt surrounded with love and peace.

After we paid our respects we took a walk through the cute little downtown area of Encinitas for a little shopping.

Then on to the hotel for a little pre-game and dinner before the “big ass party” to celebrate Kiras short but amazing life.

We stayed at the Hilton in Del Mar, within drunk walking distance to the venue of course.

The big ass party was just that! There was music and a bar and dancing and so many good people. I bet Kira would have been super happy to see such a turn out, such a moving experience. We could all be so lucky to have a celebration of life like hers!

I never met this firecracker of a girl but it sure felt like I had. (My friend and me were there to support my sister in law, she is friends with the family).

It was a long but great day and into the night great fun was had.

Cut to, yes I’m leaving details after 9pm out of this post, the next morning. 😊

We peeled ourselves out of bed and got ready to meet our friends for brunch.

Delicious. Not much is better than brunch on the patio at the Bernardo Winery with your bestest friends! 🥰

One more stop before we geared up for the five hour drive home.

Our friend, Tracy Sekhon, has started an awe inspiring non-profit research and treatment facility in Rancho Bernardo for those on the Autism spectrum. It’s truly phenomenal and the facility is gorgeous. I’m not just saying this because there are massage chairs that I’m pretty sure were put there just for me. 😂

I strongly encourage you to dig into her website , they’re going to do wonderful things!

https://www.artcsandiego.org/

We were treated to an in depth tour of the facility and I can safely say, all five of us were beyond impressed.

Having said our goodbyes, the girls and I hit the road! Oh but there was one more stop! Quick stop off at Chuparosa winery, in Ramona, to grab a few bottles.

The end 🏄🏼‍♀️🏄🏼‍♀️🏄🏼‍♀️

Captivating Colorado

My last post was from a trip too long ago for me to remember completely. I am going to give this one a shot ~ Our journey in Colorado was only a month ago. Here we go!

We flew standby courtesy of Southwest Airlines ~ Lucky us! We got the golden ticket on the first flight out of Phoenix! Did you know Delta Airlines does not fly direct to Denver from Phoenix? Bizarre. Anyway, we arrived took a jaunt over to the rental car facility and we were on our way. Just that easy.

OH! Sidebar regarding looking for car rentals, seems super shady but here’s a little story. Obviously, I went online to look for car rentals a couple of weeks before our planned trip. I went to Budget’s website, plugged in the details and the internet spat out a number I didn’t really like, it was somewhere around 350.00 – not terrible but – I thought I could do better. I went to another website, (I don’t remember which one but something along the lines of Kayak or Priceline) their prices were like 10.00 more so I went back to Budgets website and the price had jumped to like 375.00!

Something triggered, in my wine induced, brain…open up a new “incognito/private” browser. I did and went back to Budgets website, I got the car reserved for 188.00! for 3 full days. Tip – when looking for car and airline reservations, do so in a private/incognito window. 🙂 You’re welcome. You may know this but I feel like I just discovered a new planet.

We had a ton of time to waste before checking into the airbnb so we decided to get lost in search of food. Well, getting load was not decided but it happened anyway. By the way, Denver smells like weed and dog food. Please don’t be offended Denver people, it’s not meant to be a dig, just my observation.

Finally we found a cute little breakfast spot in City Park called Syrup ~ The staff was super nice ~ the breakfast was delish and the scenery of the park area was mellow. It is a little hipstery though – no problem for me – but just a heads up.

Check in to the airbnb was easy and there was parking behind the house – thank goodness because when we drove down the street there were cars parked the length of the entire street not one space for me.

The outside of this place and all the other houses in the area look all historic mansion types and that I love.

With that said…This place is located in Capital Hill.. I think the whole house has like 8 (complete guess) units most with their own entrances the inside of the unit we stayed in was completely remodeled and in great taste.

Here is the parking and entrance area of the little dwelling.We dropped the car and our belongings off and headed off to the record store through the piss riddled alley. Sorry, girl from the suburbs here..it smelled horribly bad.

We spent some time rifling through the solid collection of vinyl records this store of over 40 years has, Wax Trax Records . The website is not great but the store is awesome. Did I tell you how much I love brick buildings??

After the records store, we NAPPED before heading out to the Red Rock Amphitheater!

This place is THE place to see live music. Bucket list item crossed off. Seeing live music at the Red Rock should very well be on your bucket list too.

It is a little tough to see the greatness from a cell phone photo, I wish I had brought a wide lens.

The above photo was taken a couple of hours before show time, once the music started the place was packed.

Head up! It’s quite the hike to get up there from the parking lot, at over 6000 elevation..bring an oxygen tank. 🙂

When the sun goes down, the moon comes up, the city lights, the stars combined with the music and people..it is surreal.

The next morning we drove up north. The plan was to go to Rocky Mountain National Park and make a pit stop at Estes Park. Come on now, we had to visit the Shining Hotel! AKA The Stanley Hotel. So majestic, so cool and I bet so haunted 🙂

They offer tours, we did not partake but we did some good exploring and off course had a redrum latte.

They use key cards now but these are the old creepy keys they used back in the day.

I bet there is a ghost in there somewhere…

As I mentioned, the plan was to go up to the national park but we saw some clouds up there that made us Phoenicians nervous. So we made the decision to be safe and head back to town – off the aunts place for dinner and drinks. Jasons aunt lives outside of Denver and his other aunts, from Holland, just so happened to be in town the same time. It was great to connect with family while out of our element.

On to the next day! Another breakfast spot worth mentioning in the capital hills area is called Jelly ~ This place was our favorite eatery. I want this shirt if anyone is asking, you can order it on the website 🙂 Screen Shot 2019-11-18 at 7.48.26 PM

Belly’s full of delicious brekky we drove to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, strolled around there for a good few hours – I feel like it is geared more towards kids but it was cool anyway. I would not say it is a must see but it was still a good day. I mean, look at that view.

Olifant!

The following day was a travel day. Not a good day for standby, delayed and cancelled flights due to wind ~ we chose to fly to Albuquerque otherwise we would have been stuck in Denver for another night, who knew Phoenix was such a hot place to fly into. I ended up leaving Jason in Albuquerque and he didn’t make any flights until the last one so it was a shit of a day but we made it home. Safe and sound and ready to start planning the next adventure.

Glorious Utah

Sunday afternoon NFL means to me, doing some laundry, getting ready for the work week and becoming side-tracked by looking at old photos.

In looking at said old photos I realized that I have not shared some superb exploring!

A lot of months ago, 7 months to be exact, Jason and I took a little 3 day trip up to our neighboring state of Utah. I am not sure what took me so long to make this short hour and 10 minute flight from Phoenix, this place is beautiful and this is how I felt the entire time.

Free and peaceful.

Being this adventure was 7 months ago, I will not be able to give you specific details but know this….If you go, rent a van and camp or bring your own camper van. We stayed in hotels and drove around a stupid Dodge Charger, this was the only disappointment. I requested a tiny little compact car, the rental place was out of them so they gave me – what they thought – was an upgrade. The whole purpose for me ordering a tiny little compact car is because we are time little compact people and I do not feel comfortable driving anything bigger than my Jetta. Rant over. 🙂

So, yeah, basically, I don’t really remember the details to write an amazing blog about it but I bet these photos will convince you to GO!

Our first stop: Kanarra Falls (Thank goodness I took a photo otherwise there is no way I would have remembered this).

Kanarra Falls is a slot canyon and requires a permit of 12.00 per person. There are four points to this hike totaling almost 2 miles to the end (round trip 4 miles) Prepare to get wet, we only hiked up to point 2 and were hiking through water up to my knees. Going beyond point 2, I probably would have had to swim (take into account I am only 5’2″ so my knees, may well be your ankles) 😀 . It was April, the water was cold, I was not going to go there and neither was Jason.

Next stop…ZION! This place is WOW. You must get to the park early if you want to find a spot to park. We were lucky and ended up parking in the lot where the buses shuttle you to each of the trails throughout the day. There were a few trails closed and one that I was way to chicken to try. Angels Landing. You guys…click on the link (tip, the word Angels Landing is pink, click on it) and watch this video. Would YOU do this trail? I’m getting anxiety just thinking about it again, also a little regret because how badass would it be to conquer this fear in such a magical place?

A little snacky poo after our wanderings.

Sadly, I did not bring my DSLR and sadly I did not take as many photos as I should have but i encourage you to visit, take many more photos, document and also google pictures of Zion to give you ideas of photos you may want to have as a part of your own adventure collection.

Last stop, Snow Canyon. I wanted to go here because I thought it was where that canyoneer guy cut off his arm. It was not, he did that in Blue John Canyon. Whatever, it was still beautiful. See?

Looks like a cow-pie.

Moral of this story…visit Utah. We will return. 🙂

One year and seven months

This is how long I’ve been “away”. I want to get back, but I’m not quite sure how to get there. Maybe this is step one, maybe this is just another pop in to leave you all hanging for another year and seven months.

I will say this, I’ve never used a calendar and I am notorious for having commitment issues regarding making plans. With that said, I’m doing it! I am going to put you on my calendar for this coming Sunday. Nothing major planned but my friends and fam are headed to Scottsdale this weekend to check out the new Medieval Times Dinner Theater, I’ll let you know how it is!

Until then, I hope each and everyone one of you has an amazing rest of the week!

Ta ta!