Pining for the Fjords

A few months back, when we were determining what to do for Chris' birthday weekend, we cottoned onto the idea of taking Arlene to Joshua Tree National Park and camping for a few days.  Fair warning: this trip - although it only lasted two full days - will probably take 4-5 blog entries because of the number of pictures I took.  JTNP is fantastically photogenic, and we came home with around 400 shots.  Yes, really.  At least we'll be set with blogs until Christmas! The three of us - me, Chris, and Arlene! We've always wanted to visit Joshua Tree, but we've never thought about it far enough ahead of time to get a campsite.  See, in the nicer months (October-April or so), reservations fill up crazy fast, since it's so popular; it's first come, first serve the rest of the year, but since it's 110 or so during the day in summer, there's not much attraction for us to visit at that time (we have those temperatures at home AND we have a house with AC).  We final

On the last  blog , the girls spent some time romping in the water at Alamo Lake! Another lake shot - you might want to click and make this one larger - it's a panoramic. After getting everyone back from the boat ramp, we set up the wire exercise pen for the girls, and they happily plopped down on the beds to chill out in the shade of Arlene's awning.  Chris and I listened to music and ate snacks while enjoying the breeze blowing through the campsite. Damp doggos drying off in the sunshine Time for Cheeze-Its! As the sun moved across the sky, it became a bit sunny in our area, so Chris worked on rigging up the tarps Bryan and Jen brought to our canopies, and we moved our operation over a bit. The engineer at work! "Thanks, Dad!" After so much stimulation and time in the sun, we were all pretty worn out, so we headed inside for a little bit; Chris listened to some lectures for class while I read, and after he headed out to do some fishing with Bryan on the lakeshore, I

Did you read Part 1?  Here you go! Last week, I started blogging about our recent trip to Alamo Lake, an Arizona state park near Wenden.  Wenden itself is near Salome; if you prefer, it's also 45 minutes from Wickenburg.  It is in the middle of NOWHERE, is what I'm trying to say. There's the lake! For all of us, one of the major reasons in going to the lake was to get our fuzzballs in the water.  Bryan and Jen had invested in these cool, inflatable boats, so they drove to the working boat ramp and launched them with their dogs, Bogey and Bronx, aboard.  They rowed over to the high water boat ramp we'd explored last night, and we met them there with our girls.  As you might imagine, all sorts of wet dog-related chaos ensued. Bryan asked if we would take pictures of the four of them as they rowed over, and I made sure to oblige - that's them right there! I'm not saying that they HAVE to put this on their holiday card, but, you know... Jen and Bogey, having a good