Tim and I go to Pittsburgh!

There's a Mr. Rogers statue next to the river near Heinz Field. I think it's a little on the creepy side.

Phipps Conservatory!

Saguaros are cool.

Deer in the headlights?

this is officially my favorite Christmas tree.

This has been photoshopped to get rid of the holes in my jeans, and the handkerchief that was between my legs. Thanks Carl!

Tim and his dad, Carl Palka

20 yard line, 22 rows up. Not too shabby!

I'm cold, but having a good time!

in the orchid room!

I especially like the miniature vegetable garden.

sidecar!

fluffy!

I would call Marshall Marshosaurus...

in the Hopi Katsina display at the Carnegie Museum. Just

tree house!

I love this plant.

Balsa wood

Snowmen jumped into the hottub!

Carl and Janet- we were in the botany room, and there were all these boxes just sitting there. Tim got this crazy idea to stack them into a pyramid... Seeing if we could get kicked out of the museum I guess.

Gingy!

Some pretty sweet fossils there.

It's got feathers!

try it, you'll like it.

So if you don't like the way this blog looks, you can tweak it, click on this address instead. mmmmm.... you're curious I can tell.

Backpacking trip down to Horseshoe Mesa

 Abby pointing at a benchmark, 1200 feet below the south rim!

 Caves on Horseshoe Mesa

 Weird.

 We walked out to the tip of this thing.

 gnoming

 I LOVE this agave.

I also love that this tree decided to crack open a rock, slide a root down, then move over to another crack in a rock.

I also really like this tree, the squiggliness of it.

This is my favorite picture of us getting to the top. It's snowing. We started hiking up in t-shirts.

Petroglyphs and Pictographs!

I think this one is hilarious. Some Ancestral Puebloan really thought a lot about his manhood.

What does it mean?!

I think this panel is super awesome- it's got a really old pictograph, and then petroglyphs were pecked into the same rock. I like the bighorn sheep on the right. I have a thing for sheep glyphs. don't know why.

This one is red and yellow, thought that was pretty cool.

I believe this one on the left is a deer. See the antlers?

Spot the ruins

There are actually several ruins on this pinnacle. How the heck?

Tim and I go hiking and find strange stick stuctures in the forest. This one is weird because it's not teepee shaped. Hmm... Some of the sweat lodges we've found are a couple hundred years old. Who'd a thunk?