Vacation

A friend pointed out that it had been along time since I had blogged. So I thought I would post pics of my "vacation". It is more of a spiritual renewal than a vacation. I go to a Sundance each year at this time. It is located in eastern washington in desert country.

I take my tent and camping gear and go for a little over a week depending on when I decide to come back. But usually I return on the morning of the fourth of July. However this time I came home on the third at the ungodly hour of 1 am.

The reason for this is that when you go to Sundance you are on Indian time. I think it works like this

two or three hours=one hour

So if you say you will leave in an hour you probably are not going to leave until much later, LOL in this case it was quite a few hours later. Like all day later. First of all there is the feast, then the raffle, then the give away. After that you spend quite a while walking all over a very large area of land to say goodbye to folks. I ended up waiting for a friend who wanted to do a ceremony before leaving. So I helped another friend pack. (I had gotten all packed that morning before the feast.) By the time it was all said and done I left at 8 pm. I have a four hour drive back. But all in all it always feels strange to return to the mundane after having spiritual ceremonies for a week.

So I thought I would include a pic of my tent. It is actually in my back yard in this pic. I had just gotten it off ebay and wanted to make sure I could put it up by myself.

These pictures are what the area looks like. It is desert and full of hills, sagebrush, and not too much more. Although where I camped did have trees in some areas, scrub brush trees mostly. It is a camp ground so the land was more spread out and a bit flattter. Although there is a hilly feel to it and most of the tents sat on a slanted hill side.

This area is called Selah. I actually camped in Goldendale washington but it pretty much looks the same. I stopped at a rest stop and took this picture when I got pretty close to my destination. This is called the Selah Cliffs. The bridge is a memorial bridge, I think it was called the Fred Hutchinson Memorial bridge.

The next picture is at the end of the Sundance with some friends. I have to admit I look better than I thought I would. LOL It is a hot and dusty camp out. For spiritual reasons we use as little water as we can except for drinking purposes. So what you can't see in the pic is that my ankles are filthy with dust. At night I used a cleansing wipes before I got into my sleeping bag but after a while the grime just settles in.

I saw a really cute weasel while I was there. It was red and running through the prarie grass. It poked it's head under the canopy tarp and looked at us. Then it scampered to the other end of the tarp and look at us there, then it ran away. Later I found it had rummaged through the garbage sack in camp. What a weasel! LOL. I didn't take this picture as I didn't have my camera out. Found it on the internet. Isn't he cute!

I woke up this morning and decided that I am going to paint my bathroom. When I left for Sundance the landlady had her handyman come in to paint the ceiling of the bathroom. He is not the best handyman in the world and for what ever reason he painted all the walls but two. So I have this bright white paint everywhere else and this flat dirty paint in the other places. Sigh, I wonder what she pays this guy to do this stuff. I have yet to have him do anything well. I wish I was a bit more handy myself. So I will paint over the white with the blue I have on hand because if I don't I will be looking everyday at a crappy painting job and mumbling in disgust. Might as well save me the mumbling LOL. Lucky for me it is a small bathroom and won't take long, well unless I am on Indian time. (:

I will post the before and after pics when I am through.