Road Trip!
What a week!! I just spent the last 6 days driving across the country with my dad and his dog, visiting some great friends whose backyard is Yellowstone River and front yard is Yellowstone park and taking quite a few photos of the amazingness around me.
It was great. I’m exhausted.
I am really looking forward to Sunday when I have nothing going on and I can decompress in my apartment with my cats and computer. Funny how vacations often don’t really relax you and instead you need a vacation from your vacation in the end.
Oh well, I’m home. And I’m so excited to go and pick these little ones up from the cat sitter (my awesome aunt!) … I suspect they are going to be extra cuddly today when they get home. Well, once they get over how pissed they are for me shoving them into a cat carrier and putting them in the car for 45 minutes. Then they will be cuddly for sure 
Sit tight, many more photos on the horizon!
Read Morethe pup with no name :: minneapolis pet photographer
On my recent trip to Mexico I was pretty focused on trying to find 3 animals to photograph … a beach cat, a donkey on the side of the road and a dog. I was successful thanks in large part to my traveling companions who stopped the car whenever I wanted to get out and were patient with my quest
Now I’m sure it’s no surprise that in Mexico there are a lot of dogs wandering the streets. As a serious animal lover that was hard to see. I wanted to take them all home, clean them, feed them and love them. While I was walking along the mountain roads of San Jose del Pacifico I saw this pup. One thing that made me feel a bit better about his situation is that he looked pretty well fed and mostly just dirty and scruffy. And boy, was he friendly! He found me, my camera and my belly scratching expertise to be magnificent.
Until next time, lovely street dog!
Besos!
Read Moremexico!
as I posted on here almost too many times to tag, I went to Mexico at the end of February (the very end! my passport is actually stamped February 29th!!!) and came back some time in March. It was lovely!! I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t as ‘magical’ as last year, but who could have expected that? But it was fantastic for it’s own reasons – I spent 10days with Perdues+ and feel like I went home without them being completely annoyed of me, so I consider that a success!!
below are a selection of photos from the trip …
let’s start with some good old fashioned beach frolicking … who can go wrong there!
This was a random photo shoot that we decided upon because Mur’s mom gave me some dresses to take to Mexico to fight over with Margee … Pretty sure we had a pretty huge audience for this!!! They all loved drinking their beer and watching the blond girls run around the beach
ha!
but the trip wasn’t all frolicking on the beach…
there was food…
there was beautiful rug weaving (more on that later) …
there were succulents …
and mules.
It was a really lovely trip! A lot of bitter with my sweet, but I made it and made it home
Probably more to come from this trip in coming weeks… but for now, I’ll leave you craving a beach
Besos!
Read MoreMexican Beach Cat
… as opposed to last years Mexican Beach Dog.
Normally I’m a little apprehensive of random, stray animals that I meet on the street or a beach, as the case may be. You never know how they will react! That doesn’t mean I don’t try to be long lost BFFs but I’m at least a little cautious about it. But this kitty wasn’t completely random or stray … she was at the same cabañas last year. I got a few photos of her then but honestly, they aren’t great. She had a pretty serious neck wound and you could tell she had just been in a brawl. So when I got back to the cabañas again this year I was actually really excited to see her! And she was as friendly as I had remembered.
you can see in that top right image the scar she has from her battle. and this is 1 year later! I got the feeling that most of my traveling companions thought that I was rather strange for how many photos I took and how much I enjoyed her. I guess any cat that acts like it likes me is fair game for my love
I love those last 3 because it reminds me so much of Roux! She does this on my dad’s deck all.the.time. Except she is a smidge bigger and the rails are still about that far apart… so it’s just her nose that squeezes through I took these photos and then sent dad a message saying “I found Roux in cat form.” He seemed pretty excited to see what that meant.
Have a lovely evening!! I’m looking forward to what looks like an impending soaking and nice, cool sleeping temps while listening to the beautiful pitter patter. Bliss.
“Tut tut, it looks like rain”
Read Moreon my way home!
Phew – after quite a few days of meandering around Mexico, I’m on my way home. I had an amazing time but I am so excited to snuggle with my girls!!
and go through photos from here…
be back in a flash!
Read Moreright now
… I am enjoying one of these … here.
… and then I’m going to go play in this
well, that actually looks rather intense. I think I’ll find a more calmer section of water to wade around in. Take care, Minnesota!
Read Morea glimpse of winter?
… why not. I mean why not have threats for the only snow storm MPLS has had all year the day I’m supposed to leave for a trip to Mexico? I have my fingers crossed real hard there are not glitches in my travels!!! Hopefully things don’t turn out like this …
… this was just one of the 20some” blizzards we had last year. In fact, this was the day after we got back from Mexico.
Well as I’m getting ready for my trip, packing the last of my goodies, clearing the last of my memory cards and cuddling with my kitties before they go to Hotel-de-Dad, I’m reminiscing on last year’s trip. It was really great. Really really great! One of those trips that you want to do over again and again. I am really looking forward to this one but also know if won’t be the same – not even close – and while that’s making today hard, I know that we will make new memories and have as good of a ‘full-on-pina-colada-mode’ time as we possibly can have.
… and now don’t you want to be there too??
Read Moreminneapolis photographer :: mexico … pt.3 …
The thing about Mexico is there is always so much to tell Here is part 3 (and likely the last part) of our trip to Mexico. If you haven’t yet, you may want to read part 1 and part 2 before so as to catch up… It’s ok, I’ll wait. Come on back when you’re ready.
Alrighty! One of the evenings we were at the beach we hauled it up to a point that had an amazing view of the sun set. Seriously, amazing.
This was the beach we swam at, walked on and ate up and down the whole time we were there. Our Cabana was just off the beach and over in the corner behind the rocks in the above photo.
I snapped so many photos while we were out here!! I t was so beautiful it was easy to go nuts.
siblings!! har har har
It was so lovely to turn around and see the moon coming up behind us! Ah, I love Mexico
… so pretty!!
After the sunset we hiked back down to our Cabana got some snacks and cracked open a bottle of wine. A walk down the beach + an hour later led to these magnificent works of art…
Mur + Margee fighting over wine. Typical.
Those 3 (and the ‘wine’ ones from above) are all night shots from down on the beach. Each was taken for about 30 seconds to get a good exposure. I think the top 2 beach ones look a lot like scenes in daylight, but nope – they are definitely night shots! On vacation the fun with me is never ending
After that it was basically retracing our initial steps – still fun, but not much new – for the next 2 days. We took the bus back up to San Jose del Pacifico, got another Cabana, had another great dinner, took another bus ride, got to Oaxaca and resumed shopping. There was one place in particular I really wanted to go – Mujeres Artesanas de las Regiones de Oaxaca – it’s a women’s coop that had all kinds of handmade crafts. Hit the jackpot there again! And after shopping we got back to our amazing hotel and grabbed a few Coronas. It was delicious after hiking around with our packs and shopping in the hot sun.
We met up with Margee again, which was great. And she took us out on the town again for our last night in Mexico. It was all about the food that night – what did we have to eat before we left that we hadn’t eaten yet or even that we wanted more of.
… shrimp at Marco Polos
… street corn
… and grasshoppers + mezcal. 2 separate places but both quite interesting!
We walked around the Zocolo for a little while before heading back to our abode for the night. It was really neat to see the streets lit up at night!
… and once we got back, there was one last sibling fight before we called it a night.
The next morning we got a taxi to the airport real early to catch our flight to Houston. And for those who care, my missing flip-flop was not in the trunk. Once checked into our flight we got breakfast and had time to relax {and wake up!} before heading to our seats on the plane.
Once in Houston poo hit fan … As a preview to the end of the story – we made our flight. But the journey to get there seemed like the longest 2 hours ever! Course we picked the slowest line coming through immigration {isn’t that how it always goes, though?} and then I got pulled aside to have my luggage searched. I was behind a couple who had 2 carts full of luggage, a man who had inappropriate photos on his computer and a dude they felt had far too many DVDs to not be selling them when he came into the country. I felt like the cards were stacked against me. I just wanted to say “hey! I can unpack my bag if you want to just come take a look at it! I’ve got nothing to hide but I do have a plane to catch!” Finally it was my turn and I heaved my big pack up on the conveyor belt and the security guard started explaining why I was there {I’m the lucky one from that flight that got randomly picked} and that he would try to go as quickly as possible. That made me feel better but still I knew he wouldn’t lose sleep if I missed my flight. He started pulling my bag apart and searching things to make sure I wasn’t smuggling something/anything back in. I had declared everything and was not smuggling so I felt pretty ok – until he found the worm salt for the Mezcal we were bringing back. I hadn’t actually been in on the conversation about what that stuff was so my stomach dropped when he pulled it out and in his thick Boston accent said…
“Waz dis?”
I stumbled. I muttered. I said “Umm. Honestly? I don’t know. Um… I know it goes with the Mezcal…”
“Da wha?”
Eek!
“The Mezcal? It’s the liquor I declared on my form there and have wrapped up in my bag in that blanket right there?”
… he turned this tiny little twisty-tied bag of orange powder around in his hands. Looking at it. Studying it. Then shrugs his shoulders and tosses it aside.
Phew … and I didn’t even puke
From there on it was a pretty harmless search – we chatted about the winter and the snow {since he was originally from Boston and I was from MPLS} and how Houston is a woos about what they call a blizzard. He finished the search and said I could pack things up and head out, so I did. Apparently after that you still have to go through security. And after that you have to verify your gate hasn’t changed – best to do that before you get to the original gate.
We found ourselves running down the hallways to get to our gate in order to make our flight. We made it in time {with actually “plenty” of time by airline standards}, grabbed 2 bottles of water and some pretty crappy airport food and got our seats on the MPLS flight. Thank goodness. I was ready for another blizzard and would have been sad to have missed it by being stuck in Houston
Overall, it was an AMAZING vacation. Wonderful. Yummy. Beautiful. Fun. It was exactly what I needed after such a long 2010! Thanks so much to Margee for being such an amazing tour-guide!! We had so much fun and I hope you enjoy the photos to accompany our great stories. Can’t wait to come back 
Please don’t move … Unless it’s to someplace more beachy.