Machu Picchu

We ended our trip with 2 days in Aguas Calientes and Machu Picchu. Seriously, these ruins are so much BIGGER in person than you can possibly imagine from a picture. Visiting them was one of the vacation highlights of my life.

If you would like to see additional pictures from my trip, go here (Cuzco to Salkantay Pass) or here (end of trek) or here (Machu Picchu). Someone asked me if I knew any of my travel companions before the trip. Nope! I didn't know a soul. Going on an organized tour like this gave me a chance to take the vacation I wanted without finding a partner (always really difficult). And it was fun to get to know new people.

Trek Across Salkantay Pass

After Cuzco, our group drove to the beginning of our 7-day trek. We spent anywhere from 2 1/2 to 7 hours hiking each day, and reached 15,300 feet above sea level. I think I understand a small part of what pioneers must feel, except that I had a warm bed and good food to eat each night!

A pretty lake we hiked to as an acclimatization hike:




















At the top of the pass:
















At high places, the Peruvians leave little piles of rocks as offerings to the gods. I decided to leave my own little offering:
















Things were a little greener (and warmer) once we got down from altitude and into the cloud forest:

Cuzco

My last hurrah before starting work in August was a trip to Peru. I have dreamed of hiking in the Andes and visiting Machu Picchu for years, so I decided to just GO. I took my trip through REI Adventures. It was really well organized. I highly recommend traveling with a group like this. In any case, here goes the first installment of the travel-log.

I met my group in Cuzco on July 17:















We visited some interesting archeological sites around Cuzco, such as Sacsayhuaman, a walled Incan complex just outside of Cuzco:















Cuzco at night:

Happy Birthday to Me!

I decided to celebrate making it halfway to 70 years old by flying out to Utah and going hiking with my sister Eliz. We hiked around on Mt. Timp with our friends Julianna and Simone. Then, we had yummy Mexican food with a bunch of my other Utah friends. I have decided that birthdays are a lot more fun when you celebrate away from home. I pretty much got to celebrate all day---that never happens when I'm home! So...where should I go for big 36?















Simone, Julianna, Eliz, and I in front of one of the many waterfalls we enjoyed on our hike















I love this picture of Eliz and Simone!




















I love columbines, too!















Dinner with good friends was the perfect ending to my birthday. If only I didn't have to go home!

The Perfect Purse

I have fairly well-defined opinions about things. Some would say I'm picky. This is a great trait in many ways. I never willingly spend money on anything I'm not in love with, which means expenditures for shoes, jackets, or purses rarely cut into my pocketbook. (I see all sorts of things I am in love with at places like REI, though, so this savings plan only goes so far. Some might say my picky-ness also hurts my dating life, but I'm quite certain most of my family would disagree and say I could be pickier!)

In any case, I have been in the market for a new purse for some time. While in Lubbock I carried around a leather computer bag/briefcase thing (that I loved, naturally). I could do this as a professional usually on my way to or from work. However, currently I am just a bum, and my professional bag doesn't really work for taking jaunts to the grocery store or meeting friends for a casual dinner. Consequently, I've been carrying around a worn-out Texas Tech drawstring gym pack for the past week or so. It's not cute at all. I have had in mind getting a squarish messenger-style pouch, but I haven't seen anything I have loved that is still within my price range.

Sometimes what we think we will love isn't our true love, though. Tonight I found the perfect purse, the one I love dearly. I found it squished in the back of a sale table at JCPenney. It doesn't look at all as I would have expected it to look. It is super dark brown (almost black) leather with white contrasting stitching and sort of big buckles on one side. It is lined with some sort of wild animal looking print. And it's perfect! I would take a picture, but I don't know where my camera is at the moment and don't feel like looking for it.

In any case, the morals of my little story are these: Don't give up on finding the perfect purse. Don't settle for less. And remember that the perfect purse might not be quite as you imagined it to be!

Cycling in Lubbock

I took my last bike ride in Lubbock to take a pack from packing. My friend Debbie caught a picture of me.

On My Way

I am on my way to the East Coast. I felt like a giddy school girl yesterday when I set out from Lubbock, and I heehawed to my sister on the phone when I crossed from Texas into Louisiana. Today I gave another hurrah as I crossed the Mississippi. By tomorrow I will be with family in North Carolina. It feels great to be heading back "home"! Mac Davis may have wanted to be buried in Lubbock, Texas, in his jeans, but I am definitely an East Coast girl (or perhaps a Colorado girl, but that's for another day).

The other thing that makes me feel giddy is that tomorrow night I get to go to a pole night at the motor speedway in Charlotte. What is a pole night, you ask? Well, I just found out today when Dad said he got the tickets. Apparently, "pole night" is code for "qualifying races" in NASCAR lingo. I think it sounds like code for "fun."