Crater Lake

Crater Lake is easily my favorite place on earth.

I say that knowing full well that there are countless places on earth I have yet to see.  Why?  Because it is the only place I've ever been that turned out to be even more awesome in reality than I had imagined it to be in my mind.

I had seen photos of Crater Lake when I was a teenager and decided I wanted to visit, but it wasn't until I was 25 that my dad and I took a trip there together.  The first moment I saw Crater Lake is as clear to me now, 18 years later, as it was when it happened.  That trip remains one of the greatest experiences of my life and to have those memories with my dad is priceless.

C and I visited in 2001 because I wanted to share it with him, too, and he also fell in love with it because it is such a beautiful, special, magical place.  Yes, it is the deepest lake in the U.S., at 1,943 feet.  Yes, it formed as the result of a violent volcanic eruption that caused the top of a mountain to collapse into itself.  And yes, the water is the most gorgeous shade of blue you will ever lay eyes on.  But it is the intangible qualities, the emotions it inspires, that make it my favorite place.  I could sit and stare at that lake for all eternity and never tire of it.

The fact that I hadn't been back for 15 years kind of surprised me, but I realized that my memories of it are so vivid that I feel like I can visit any time.  That might sound cheesy, but it is so true.

Last week, C and I spent two nights in small cabin just outside of the park.  Unfortunately, there was a forest fire raging on the west side of the park, so quite a large section the drive around the rim was inaccessible.  As you can see from the photos below, that made no difference to us!  One of the two nights, we watched the sunset and it was breathtaking with the smoke from the forest fire snaking up into the sky.  Afterwards, we stayed in the park for several hours until it was pitch black so we could stargaze.  What a perfect night.

I could go on and on about my love for this park, but I think the photos speak for themselves (all taken with my phone).

even the local residents are mesmerized by Crater Lake

my favorite human <3

Happy Tails to you!

Half My Life

So August 5, 2016 may seem like just an ordinary day, but it's something pretty special in my life:  today marks the point at which I have been married for exactly half my life.

My family will tell you that I have somewhat of a crazy memory for dates and calendars.  I constantly keep track of how much time since and how long until various events and often report to them things like, "you know, it's been exactly 14 years since we bought our house" (last month) or "on this day when I was in third grade, we went to the Magic Kingdom for the first time" (every December).  I can't explain why my memory works this way – it's similar to the "on this day" feature of facebook and I am full of fairly useless facts on any given day.

Sometimes I love it because I randomly recall happy memories, while at other times, it feels like I've had the wind knocked out of me when I remember a sad event (recently this has been me realizing how long it's been since Chelsea passed away).  I don't even do it consciously most of the time – it just happens somewhere in the depths of my brain.

A few weeks ago, it dawned on me that I'd been married for almost as long I had not been married.  I decided to quickly figure out the exact date, and lo and behold, it is today, August 5, 2016!

Is it me or is that crazy…half my life?!?  How is that possible?  On one hand, it seems like we just got married yesterday – maybe because all of those horror stories people share about getting sick of each other and having nothing to talk about once you've been married for a while could not be less true for us.

He is the first person I want to talk to about good news and bad news.  After almost 22 years of marriage, I still can't wait to see him at the end of each day and there is no one who makes me laugh like he does.  He is unequivocally my best friend and most ardent supporter, and he not only tolerates, but also celebrates and participates in my weirdness and goofy antics (perfect example:  every time we go to Starbucks at a Disney Park and I get character names on our cups).

When I reflect back on all of our adventures over the course of our marriage, it now seems like we've been married for much longer than we have because how could we have possibly packed all of that fun into only 21-plus years?

All I know for sure is I am extremely lucky.

What a great day!  Alive for 15,776 days and married for 7,888 of them.  Half my life!

Here we are in 1994…

and here we are in 2014 when we renewed our vows….

Happy Tails to you!

Citi Field

As I have written previously, we attended baseball games in all 30 Major League ballparks and are now slowly visiting stadiums that are new since we completed our checklist.

So far, we've been to new and improved stadiums of the Nationals, Pirates, and Yankees.  However, as we were discussing the stadiums, we realized that we actually went to games in two different ballparks of the Milwaukee Brewers because the team got a new stadium while we were living outside of Chicago.  So we went to one game at Milwaukee County Stadium and another at Miller Park, meaning that Miller Park was really our first "new" stadium.  So prior to this weekend, we'd been to 34 MLB stadiums!!!

Actually, the Blue Jays played at a different stadium before their current home at Rogers Centre (or as I will always refer to it, SkyDome), which was called Exhibition Stadium, and both C and I went to games there, but that was before we started dating, so we don't count that one because we didn't attend a game there together.

For number 35, we went to Citi Field to watch the Mets host the Cubs last night.

We drove up to New York yesterday morning, stopping in New Jersey to have lunch with my YaYa before continuing on to Long Island.  The weather was absolutely perfect for a baseball game…mostly sunny skies, mid 70s, and very little humidity.  A bonus was that it was a night game, so the sun blazing down on us was not an issue.

Baltimore Harbor Tunnel

Delaware Memorial Bridge

Bronx-Whitestone Bridge

I love Lucky Cat!

Not the best fortunes we've ever received!

The stadium is really fantastic!  We have been to some less-than-stellar stadiums in our travels, and there is always some mild trepidation when we visit a new stadium (or NHL arena, for that matter)…just because something is new does not necessarily mean it is well-designed.

The Home Run Apple from Shea Stadium

The Home Run Apple from Shea Stadium

Jackie Robinson Rotunda

Random shirts in the team shop

Citi Field is absolutely beautiful and we thoroughly enjoyed the game!  The Mets won 4-3, which included a home run by Neil Walker in the top of the first inning, which caused the giant apple in center field to pop up from its base.  What a cool and unique feature!

It was a fabulous day with a pretty spectacular sunset!

Five more new stadiums to go!

Happy Tails to you!