Rants, Recipes, and Running

I've been a little absent from here lately. A few months ago, I did a post about adding adventure to my life. I believe my goal was that every day I wasn't spending 13 hours in an ER saving lives and taming drug addicts (aka, working)  ....I was going to do something different, new, exciting, and fun. It could be something living large or something as simple as taking a new walking/hiking/biking/running trail. I am proud to say I've stuck to my guns on this one! These past few weeks have been rather fun. Ryan got home, we realized we had some spare days to run away to San Diego for a few, we went camping, and in just a few short weeks we move to San Antonio for 3 months! I will let the pictures do most of the talking!   View of Mission Beach from our room! If you're ever in San Diego - I would highly recommend staying at The Catamaran. Resonably priced - Close enough to walk anywhere - but not in the "party central". Rooms are on the Bay Side. Gorgeo...

As I am preparing for my return to the real world tomorrow, I feel a strong sense of dread. As I won't have a weekend or free week for a long while! Instead of focusing on that.......I'm sharing a few snapshots from our awesome weekend! This weekend we were in Big Lake, AZ -- which is about 20 miles from the New Mexico border (just 5 1/2 hours from our house). (last weekend we were in Parker Canyon...which I will blog about another day) We camped from Friday-Monday, which was the perfect length of time. The temperatures were a great escape from hot Tucson. In fact...it was VERY cold at night. It was in the low 30's at night, 60's during the day. The trout fishing was incredible. Here's a few snapshots: Home Sweet Home for the weekend! Look at the giant tree I cut down!!! Wow!! (Okay, this was posed...) But...Ryan did teach me how to use a wood-saw! There were tons of dead/fallen trees lying around. So we cut all our firewood for the weekend! I felt very ...

Just one day left of work and we are headed away from civilization for... 4 days Just the 2 of us Endless forest & mountains Beautiful, challenging hiking trails Streams with great trout fishing Coooool weather (it was like 98 degrees here today, apparenltly. Days like this I am happy I don't see the sun) Views of herds of elk Delicious, fresh, meals cooked in foil over a hot camp fire Smores Cerveza Cereal in the mini boxes. But not my normal raisin bran...this is my "Get Out of Jail Free Card" --and I eat "naughty" things like Frosted Flakes and Pops! (Helllooo it's camping!) I. Love. The. White. Mountains. (AZ..not the ones by New Hampshire) :)

In most aspects of my life, I'm quite the little scheduler/planner. In fact, sometimes I feel like my brain is a constantly buzzing calendar. But many of our trips, get-aways are quite last minute. So we had one of those this weekend. We started talking Monday evening that it would be nice to do a camping trip this weekend ...... but found that the only open campsites in the area are "first come first serve" I'm not much of a "risk taker" -- and I wasn't too keen on the idea of packing up for 4 days, getting to a campground, and finding out there was no room for us! But, Thursday afternoon I made some calls around and decided it was "do-able". So I stocked up on some groceries and we packed our bags. Friday morning we were on the road to Lake Patagonia by 8:15 am! Our sweet little Honda Civic Hybrid was stuffed to the brim! Lake Patagonia is near the Mexican border. It's about 10 degrees cooler than Tucson, due to it's elevat...

Thank God we have some high-quality sleeping bags that can handle up to 0 degrees Fahrenheit. Because it got down to the 40's both nights- and our thin AZ blood doesn't tolerate the cold like it did back in North Dakota! It was a very surreal feeling waking in the middle of the night to the sound of coyotes...... We were up early to a beautiful morning. We walked down to the lake to do a little exploring. Ryan set up fishing lines....while I looked at wild flowers. This site of Ryan fishing, the nature, and boats is so peaceful to me! After a short morning on the lake, we headed back to camp to make breakfast. After breakfast, we took a drive around the area to do some exploring - and we saw a family of Elk. Elk were all over the place in this area! Just gorgeous. We decided to rent a boat for the day. So we packed up some food and drinks - and I brought books and magazines - and we enjoyed an afternoon on the lake.... Well...Kind of enjoyed..............;) We first t...

Ryan and I have always been lovers of the outdoors. With the absolute crazyiness of coordinating our schedules, we have not been able to take a camping trip yet. The number 1 priority on our wedding registry was not dishes, corning ware, or neat kitchen tools (although, I got some great ones at our shower -- and I LOVE kitchen tools). Our #1 priority was getting a good supply of quality camping gear. And that we did! So last weekend we took a 5 1/2 hour trek up the mountains to Big Lake, AZ located in the White Mountains. It's actually close to the New Mexico border. This couldn't have been a better escape from the 100+ temps Tucson has been experiences. It was in the 70's during the day and 40's at night. So here is part 1 of our short, but amazing adventure! Thursday morning, I had my Critical Care final. So, we had everything packed up Wednesday night. After my final - I came home and got everything to the door. When Ryan got home from work - the car was loaded w...