A Bit of Fun

I've managed to get out for a bit of fun the last couple weekends. Last week my retired librarian friend, Mary, and I went to Hagerman (east of here) for hiking and hotsprings. We stayed at a cute little place on Billingsley Creek--a lovely setting.

We hiked around Thousand Springs. This water was just gushing out of the side of the ridge--pretty impressive.

This was taken from the bridge across Malad Gorge. This is typical of southern Idaho. I hiked down into a similar gorge three weekends ago. (unfortunately forgot my camera on that one.)

We also hiked at Little City of Rocks. I thought the rock formations and "hoo doos" would be a fantasy writer's paradise! Do you see the eye of the iguana? Or maybe it's a cobra ready to strike a man with a helmet. Or maybe it's a dinosaur...
Last weekend was the plains, this weekend was the mountains. I went to Bogus Basin outside of Boise for a women's survival class. It felt so good to be in the mountains again.We had the first part of the class in the ski lodge.


Then we practiced our whittling skills
Our fire making skillsAnd here I am happily sitting in our little shelter
I almost feel like I should go out and get lost so I can use my new-found skills!

The Madness Continues

If I ever talk about buying a fixer-upper again, please shoot me! The last room that needed work was the family room. I really didn't like the dark paneling.

I had Davis paint the paneling on the fireplace wall but that took three coats of paint and looked really lousy. But by that time, I was at the point of no return. I either had to paint the rest of the paneling and live with it, or take the paneling off and texture and paint. Silly, me--I chose to take off the paneling. Two inches of dust and total chaos later...

I'm thinking the paneling wasn't all that bad. Will I ever learn??!!?