July 21st, 2009

We are in Seattle! Drove up from Grandma's B-day with Carley at a first leisurely, then hurried pace. Visited a bonus sister and nephew in Fresno (Us? Aunts?) and camped in a Napa vinyard among other things. We have a bottomless list of tasks to accomplish while in Seattle. Most of Ginny's involve hugging her cats, so don't expect to see much of her. Steve is planning on being less sedentary so if you want to see him you may have better luck. Give us a call or drop us a line if you're in the area. Here's some pictures of what we've been doing. More can be found in our web album at: http://picasaweb.google.com/ginnygoon/TheAdventuresOfGinnyAndSteve#

July 14th, 2009

We're back in Los Angeles after a year of wandering the states. It's Grandma's birthday once again and we're planning another epic party.

In the past week or two (who can keep track) we have been exploring the Southwest. After leaving Albuquerque

we drove up to the wilderness for the Rainbow Gathering. Free food, free camping, free entertainment, filthy hippies galore and eternal drum circles. We had a great time and met quite a few characters. A video of Steve playing accordion (as shown below) will be posted on: this website at some unknown point in the future.

On our way out we visited the four corners, then on to the Grand Canyon! Woo Hoo!! We conquered the canyon over a leisurly three days and almost died at least 15 times. The temperature at the bottom was 109 in the afternoon shade. It was awesome.

On the way down to Phoenix after an early morning of dragging ourselves up out of the hot, dirty canyon we got pulled over by a Yavapai County cop who was suspicious of our filthy appearance and wanted to profile and hassle us. It was very rude. DOWN WITH YAVAPAI COUNTY SHERRIFF'S DEPT!!! We made it to Phoenix despite the Sun's attempts at murdering us. Steve's buddy Jim was down there and we all took off East for some camping adventures in the Chiricahua Mountains.

On the 12th we sped to Los Angeles, driving straight from Phoenix with nothing but ice for air conditioning. We had a picnic under a dinosaur and made it to Grandma's just in time to scare the hell out of her and mom, who were not expecting us. Particularly not expecting us to come screaming in the backdoor.

Good job us!

July 2nd, 2009

We left Lena's place Saturday night and went down to Bonne Terre, MO where her father has a lake house.



Spent a couple days there swimming and feasting and a good hour or two staring at molting dragonflies. Just so you know, they are SUPER weird. Took a few pictures of them:





Monday we drove out in the afternoon until we reached the Mark Twain National Forest. There we found an awesome rickety, rusty old tower to climb



and a neglected forest road which led into some excellent camping grounds. Shot off some bottlerockets (Steve's excellent aim resulted in an enormous gaping wound on Ginny's leg) and hiked down into a stony valley before moving on. Covered many miles the next few days, spending the following night in an Oklahoma rest area where we met a possible ex-juggalo (!) who gave us directions to the Rainbow Gathering which just happens to be going on in the mountains near Steve's niece's house in Albuquerque (where we were already headed.) We hoped Carley would be able to make it down, but unless someone wants to sport her a ticket asap it looks like it'll be a 2/3's bandido event. Here in Albuquerque we have been hanging out with Steve's niece and family and mixing up garbage bin's full of pancake mix for the gathering.

Some more recent pictures may be found at: http://picasaweb.google.com/ginnygoon/TheAdventuresOfGinnyAndSteve#